UlBIlAriYOFCONGfiESS.^ 

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i DKITED STATES OF AJIEKICA. ! 



POEMS. 



ANNE WHITNEY, 






\-;' 



;.o:/ 



NEW YORK : 
D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 

346 & 348 BROADWAY. 



£>^. 






1 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 

D. APPLETON & CO., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
District of l^ew Tork. 



CONTENTS. 



JOY 

THE CEYBA AND THE TAUUEY 

A LAST DREAM 

FIVE SONNETS RELATING TO BEAUTY 

HYMN TO THE SEA 

K. F. . 

TWO STANZAS 

TASSO 

THE PROSPECT 

THE BRIDGE OF THE DRAGON 

EVENING 

BERTHA . 

SUSANNA 

THE SHAH . 

REASONABLENESS . • 

LINES — LOUD HEART, ETC. 

LINES — all's to gain . 

THE CENCl'S DREAM 







•PAGE 






5 






9 






. 16 






22 






. 2T 






3T 






. 88 






39 






. 44 






49 






. 62 






65 






. 68 






15 






. 11 






18 






. 19 






80 



CONTENTS. 



APPLEDORE .... 

UNDINE . . . , 

half awake 

the way appointed 

kristel's soliloquy . . . 

twenty-second op february 

CAMILLE .... 

ARIADNE 

SIESTA .... 

THE CRICKET TO OCTOBER 

LINES .... 

TEMUR .... 

THE WILD PLUM TREE . 

RAPHAEL MENGS AND HIS " HOLY FAMILY*' 

SEASIDE 

THE GRAVE-DIGGER 

EPITAPH . . ', . 

MEMORY .... 

DOMINIQUE . . 

SONNETS— NIGHT 

THE FUGITIVE-SLAVE-BILL . , 

FACTS IN VERSE 

SONNETS .... 

CONTINENCE 

TO THE SPIRIT. (bY A PRODIGAl's FAVORITE 
TO THE SAME. (bY A MISER'S PENSIONER.) 

c. l'e. .... 

THE SAME ... 

M. . . . . 

THE SAME . , , 

THE PASSION FLOWER 



JOY. 

Gray strength of years ! 

Whereon so many a bark is wrecked ; 

And even SHccess 

Falls blank and passionless ; 

This morn has decked 

Your front with trailing loveliness, 

And branching lights ; 

Inlets of summer from celestial heights. 

Dimpling with light, beneath the long arcades, 
The shadows smile in sleep : 
And all those forces manifold that keep 
Such infantine, calm play. 



JOY. 

Before the awful hand 

That makes and breaks, 

Sing and are jubilant to-day. 

Sing on, all up and down the shining land ! 

My heart your meaning takes. 

As evening's star on star, 

Through the blue portals of the air, 

What countless creatures throng ! 

And beautiful they are — 

With morning in their eyes and in their hair ; 

And on their lips an antique speech and song. 

One shadow only waits 

Aloof, poised on ascending wing, 

And lifts no voice ; but in her throat, 

I ween there is a sweeter note 

Than all these glorious warblers bring. 

I hear her chant an inward strain ; 

" Thou sett'st me above Time's annoy : 



JOY. 7 

I found delight and it was pain ; 

Thou gavest pain, and it is joy. 

Token of unaccomplished growth. 

Stern pledge of immortality ; 

Through all the earth's perplexed domain, 

Just G-od ! I would that there should be 

No living thing that should not suffer Pain." 

Thus in a ravishment 

Of inward sight, her song wells up, 

A passionate content. 

Scatter the road, 

The beaten highway of the world, my heart. 

With rose and asphodel. 

And all thou draw'st from music's throbbing well ; 

Behold how rich thou art ! 

Thou drink'st of every spring of God ; 

Broad heaven but lightly freights thine eye, 

And thy familiar pulse is rife 

With tumult of the river of life, 



JOY. 

That makes the circuit of the youngest sky. 

What thrill that spirits feel, 

Transport of love, or ecstasy 

Of still, creative force, 

That life shall not at last to thee reveal ? 

make no barren haste — 

Thou livest from day to day with God so near ! 

And well may'st brook 

Into those phantom-eyes to look 

That freeze in these half-lights our atmosphere :- — 

Seeing that thou art based 

On the immortal Joy — whose spreading bloom 

Hath root of substance so divine, 

That the perennial heavens which by it shine. 

And springes sure birth, live only to express 

Its strength and everlastingness. 



THE CEYBA AND THE YAaUEY. 

Know you the land ? 
With its cestus of summer waves, and its ocean 
Of young, soft air, with a vernal motion 
All through its golden tides ? which caresses 
And busies itself about you, and blesses 
All that it bathes with life ineffable, 
A breathing of infinite love, as well 
As of courage and youth ? That joy of the sun 
Where heaven in all its beauty is won 
To the arms of the new-made earth — do you know it ? 
That land of. hope — that land of the poet ? 

There in that isle, as you shall hear, 

The Ceyba grows — of godhke cheer ; 
1* 



10 THE CEYBA AND THE YAGUET. 

A sad and singular history- 
Is that of the beautiful Ceyba-tree, 
And what I recount of one alone, 
Is true of a thousand as of one. 

Grand and alone the giant stood, 

The Ceyba-tree of royal mood. 

It stood so great that the careless Montero 

Of the sunny Partido de Sumidero, 

Cheering his mules with song and whistle, 

Winding about those mountains that bristle 

With cactus outre, and pine, and yucca. 

And soften as well with twining bejuca, 

And the delicate weft of the tamarind 

Afloat on the sunny tropic wind, 

Seeing afar in the freshening skies, 

This beacon of silent centuries, 

Touched his cap in the way of his nation. 

Making his morning salutation. 

The giant, I said, of royal heart. 



THE CEYBA ANN THE YAGUEY. 11 

Kept with his sky and his earth apart. 
Truly, it niattered not if beneath 
The laurel upwafted proud, full breath, 
And the spiked aloe's wondrous bloom 
Enriched the warm, deep under gloom, — 
Far and forgetful the whispering Jove 
Swayed in the mighty Joy above ! 
The cedar dwarfed in his ancient face. 
The queenly Palms, from their azure dais, 
Looked upward unto the Ceyba-tree ; 
Chestnut and mango dreamily 
Heaved their soft billows in mid air, 
The cypress companioned with them there. 
But over them, an under sky 
Of shifting emerald, airily 
The Ceyba's coronal tossed and swung. 

Proud songs the lofty minstrel sung ! 
Awful it was when the southern blast 
From the sea, drove inland gray and fast. 



12 THE CEYBA AND THE YAGUEY. 

And heavy with its terrible rain 
From the chaos of the heavens and main, 
(After the weary, weary drouth, 
The gush of the burning-hearted south !) 
To hear the inspired monarch Tree 
Koar its giant hymn of Liberty : 
As if it saw red morn beneath 
The dim horizon's misty wreath. 
Coming the dank old gloom to fuse. 
And dripping with its crimson dews. 
And to the world sang o'er and o'er 
" Her fiery drops earth counts no more ! 
The hearts you shut from hope and light. 
And Beauty and the Infinite, 
Into the air, into the day, 
WiU burst their wild, indignant way ! " 
Then in the calm, the light, the glory, 
Most tender was its rhymed story ; 
When distant and faint the unweary sea 
KoUed landward its vast harmony, 



THE CEYBA AND THE YAGUEY. 13 

And the Ceyba listened by stars and moon, 
And softly answered it rune for rune. 

But alas for the stately Tree ! indeed 

Alas for it ! a little seed 

Bedded itself in the cloven bark, 

Nor did the generous Ceyba mark 

What life it gave, what strength went forth 

Into the thing of little worth ! 

Soon under the leaves might you espy, 

Gliding and creeping silently 

Forward from its buried root, 

A wavering, young and snakelike shoot. 

That little by little, day after day. 

Twists and winds its quiet way, 

'Mid shrinking leaves and buds that pine, — 

And so, with many a hideous twine 

Kound tender twig, and bough, and branch. 

Till one by one they bare and blanch. 



14 THE CEYBA AND THE YAGUEY. 

While downward it drops an hundred feet, 

And as many arms coil up and meet 

And clasp the giant, neck and limb, 

And strain him in their embrace with grim 

And deadly love ; and here and there- 

Under the sickening foliage, peer 

Keen heads like serpents' heads, intent. 

And new, strange hues flop insolent 

From bough to bough, till one might see 

How ill it fared with the noble tree ! 

How, breathless and with eager strain. 

Out of its falling piantle, in vain 

It lifted its hundred wasted hands 

To the sun and the winds, and the journeying bands 

Of sky-immortals ; 'las ! the dead moon shone 

On the peering serpents' heads alone. 

Or flecked it with many a ghastly fleck — 

The sun glared in on the spectral wreck 

Unmindful, and fierce, and wonderingly : 

And then the life-blood drearily 



THE CEYBA AND THE YAGUEY. 15 

Curdled witllin its veins and stopt ; 
While over it the Yaguey dropt 
Its mocking wreaths of gaudy hue, 
Flaunting triumphant in the blue. 
Sweet breath of heaven, and all was done ; 
And so of a thousand as of one. 



A LAST DKEAM. 

Three against one ! Three giants it was plain — 

While I might scarcely dot our battle ground, 

Which glimmered east and west, and north and south. 

Farther than eye might see. But all the while. 

For I was sinewed by our God himself, 

I knew that I should conquer. And I quailed 

No jot, who shudder now, even hut to think 

What secret, deadly and remorseless ways 

They took to break me. For one covered o'er 

With his vast hand, heaven's gracious breadth of light, 

That terror-stricken in the ghastly fields. 

My heart might burst and die. One slowly sucked 

The life blood at its fount ; and from my brain 



A LAST DREAM. 17 

The healthy vigor went, and in its place 

There was a motley whirl of fantasies, 

A dreadful dance of wicked things, that struck 

Strange gleams and painful lightnings through my lids 

Which still I saw upon the midnight snow. 

Mingling with pure auroras from the bergs, 

And meteors' silver flashes. And one — one 

Loaded these limbs with dull, invisible chains, 

So subtilly imposed, so stern and still. 

It seemed to lull the will into accord. 

And hoodwink all my soul with trust. But no ! 

I rose, I strove with triple giant strength, 

And heaved, as earthquakes mountains from their 

shoulders, 
The settling weights away, and heard them slide 
Into that night of sound, that northward far. 
Where the white sea-gull flies, for leagues on leagues. 
Wraps in its shadowy arms the gleaming coast. 
Loathing and shuddering, at length I drew 
The clinging fury from my heart — and lo ! 



18 A LAST DREAM. 

Not overhead, I think, nor from the east, 

Where the sun has its solemn, annual birth, 

ISTor glazing the waste whiteness, nor unsheathing 

The glaciers' keen swords, — but fine and still, 

And as it seemed, dilating from a seed 

Of light within, — flight peaceful, broad and soft. 

Grew round me where I stood. And Grod, who watched 

The battle from his trembling depths of Night, 

In sign and seal of this my victory, 

Sends his calm angel here, who folds an arm 

About and leads me safe, I ask not where. 

For heart and life are pillowed on his love. 

Will any say, I yielded, — drawing near 
Those lists of high renown, where the gaunt Three 
And I fought the dumb battle out, and left 
No trace in the blown, desert fields ? — Nay, far 
Beyond the last low wall of crimson light. 
That struggles to hedge off with baby gleam. 
The insurging Dark, — where sits the sceptred cold 



A LAST DREAM. 19 

Impassible and still, and the awed sea 

Groans only and upheaves in marble waves, 

When the black sleet-wind whispers, Mutiny ! 

•There is a shaft, as all the world may know, 

A monument of ice uptowering dim 

Into the heavens' crowned mystery — whereon 

Are graven with touches of the light, a name, 

And following that, a chronicle of deeds. 

And when the brief, high history makes end. 

The page of ice goes on — " And one day, Earth, 

Gray mother, bound with frost and torn with fire. 

Shall surely be redeemed by hero dust. 

Each sluggish atom of her sphere, shall bloom 

Nobly in human shape, and take the print. 

And do the mandate of a godlike will, 

Until her apotheosis be won. 

Dear then to her and to the silent Powers, 

And borne on their strong wings above defeat, 

And fear of mockery, all they who build 

In stern emprise a shrine for the Unseen ; 



20 A LAST DREAM. 

Making life poor to show how rich it is. 

Kound them heaven's flaming currents stoop and play, 

And lap the stifling vapors of the world, 

Till the space freshens into festal depths ; * • 

And Soul, before a royal mendicant. 

Pensioned of flesh along her dusky way. 

Goes forth with bounty to exultant crowds, 

With pulse of music ordering the winds, 

And trumpets blowing the eternal morn. 

And so to guard from loss and blight of Time 

The memory of such faith, and of a will 

That thrilled our adamant from coast to coast. 

This pale resplendent pillar of the frost 

Scores the dark, grasping air. But he who held 

Within his eyes, the* sacred fire that pierced 

Our ancient mysteries, and laid them bare 

Behind their five-fold barriers, afar 

Wins smiles from other heavens, and breather the meed 

Of mighty toils — the insatiate sweet of rest." 



A LAST DREAM. 21 

Be it then — rest. All round the scented coast 

Flashes the living sea ; and on my brow 

I feel the silken touches of strange winds ; 

While overhead such light, and sumptuous blue, 

And rustle of great plumes ! Still thought toils on 

In memory : — and over me those words 

That kindle the wild gleam around, throb out : 

And still I hear an under voice which says. 

That wfiat we do is better than ourselves. 

Being held unto the service of His will 

By the strong hand that fashioned us. Even so. 

But by that stair I climb to God at last. 

Trampling on ease and low usurping wants ; 

And through innumerable spheres upreaching. 

And Nights and Days till I am lost in Him. 



FIVE SONNETS KELATING TO BEAUTY. 

I. 
I DREAMED an angel, Angel twice, through death, 
Wrought us another " Night." A stately dream, 
Where reconciling Infinites did seem 
To fold round life's perplexities, and wreath 
Its ancient glooms with stars : — sl marble breath 
From Art's serene, fresh, everlasting morn; 
Where the dull worm of earthly pain is born 
To winged life thenceforth, and busieth 
With golden messages its mortal hours. 
the Divine, earth would have wronged and slain ! 
Its pangs are rays above her falling towers 
Of lovelier truth — ^breaths of a sweet disdain 
Shedding strange nothingness on meaner pain. 
Drops of the bleeding god that turn to flowers. 



FIVE SONNETS RELATING TO BEAUTY, 23 



II. 

Largess from seven-fold heavens, I pray, descend 
On all who toil for Beauty ! Never feet 
Grrow weary that have done her bidding sweet 
About the careless world ! For she is friend 
And darling of the universe ; — and day by day, 
She comes and goes, but never dies. 
So precious is she in the eternal eyes. 
dost thou scorn her, seeing what fine way 
She doth avenge 7 For heaven, because of her, 
Shall one day find thee fitter. How old hours 
Of star-rapt night about thy heart had curled — 
And thou hadst felt the morning's golden stir. 
And the appealing loveliness of flowers, 
Yea, all the saving beauty of the world ! 



24 FIVE SONNETS RELATING TO BEAUTY. 



III. 

fair mistrust of earth's more solid shows ! 

And mute appeal from its inhuman ways, 

Its iron judgments and its misspent praise, 

To the appreciation sweet that glows 

Tn heaven's old smiling eye ! slowly grows 

Our human thought ; and freedom long delays. 

Love in the shade fulfilling weary days. 

Ere her great child is born ! No wasting throes 

Foretell thy being to the universe ! 

It is as thou didst lurk on half-poised wings 

Below our life, blessing, and care and curse. 

Even at the very root and core of things : 

And couldst not keep from start, and chirp, and flight. 

And warbled hint of something back of sight. 



FIVE SONNETS RELATING TO BEAUTY. 25 



IV. 

No slight caprice rules thee. — Who sounds one note 
In God's high order finds thee at his side. 
Thou art twin-born with joy, and dost abide 
With conscience old, and blood-deep art inwrought 
With love's sweet mystery. No wanton thought 
Shall wrong the world that holds thee, or the wide 
Deep Ordering, whereof thou art the bride. 
For neither hate, nor custom's stress, nor aught 
Of e-vil can thee harm, divinest thing ; 
And through these folds of sense, thou openest 
Blue rifts to Freedom and unfathomed rest. 
Flower of a hidden life, sweet mystic spring. 
What joy must tune thy flow, and calm divine ! 
What soundness at the heart from east to west 1 



26 FIVE SONNETS RELATING TO BEAUTY. 



V. 

And for that thou art Beauty, and thy name 
Transcends all praise of thee, and doth but leave . 
Thyself for thy true rendering, I grieve 
O'er idle words. never dost thou blame, 
But seekest to inspire me all the same. 
With thine immortal freshness ! Through the night 
The moon comes large and slow, winging with light 
The joyous sea ; while sunset's last red flame. 
Baring the heavens for glories to succeed, 
Groes softly out, with endless farewell gleams, ' 
Ebbing along the yellow marge of day ; 
Glides slow, with backward gaze ; sadly indeed. 
And slow, as from the heart which new love claims 
An older memory doth steal away. • 



HYMN TO THE SEA. 

Along yon soft tumultuousness, the Dawn 
Keaches a glowing hand, and the mute world 
Thrills back to life. This lustrous blossom, curled 
In on its dreaming heart, feels the forlorn 
Old Shadow lift, and guardedly discloses 
Its wayside cheer ; and endless waves away 
Bide the slow triumph of the Light, 
Kejoicing in the infinite 
And quenchless possibility of Day ; 
Day, — that at least shall win far more than darkness 
loses. 

Over those morning waves, or when the bare 
Stars glow, or Moon her tireless lover nears, 



28 HYMN TO THE SEA. 

The eternal Beauty that these countless years 
Makes earthly musings so divinely fair, 
Broods listening to the prophecy thou chantest — 
The subtle breath of mortal sympathies 
Is she, wooing us unto right 
In unsuspected ways ; a light 
From inmost heaven tempered to dreaming eyes, 
A sweet foreshadow of the joy for which thou pantest. 

EoU in from far thy deep broad-skirted thunder, 
Whereon the wild winds fawn! Thy voice by 

day— 
But Night adopts and trances it away 
Into its clear, sad universe of wonder. 
weary of life's lavish, shallow sound. 
Enrich me beyond hunger with that tone ! 
Tell in what deep, gray solitude. 
It may be born, what caverns rude 
Still haunt it ; and if the infinite Alone 
Touch it himself with calm and utterance so profound. 



HYMN TO THE SEA. 29 

Hark'ning througli all the music of her leaves 
And inland murmurs, o'er the seaward steep, 
The stately Summer leans, while dim winds sweep 
Her shining tresses back — and half she grieves 
That thou disdain'st with thy hoar wreaths, to twine 
Her fleeting gifts. — Yet hast thou tender fancies ; 
Broodings of love when young winds cease. 
And silence deepens into peace ; 
And leadest with Day and Night immortal dances. 
Crowned with fresh marriage-blooms and lotus-cups 
divine. 

Upon the broad, gray, gleaming beach I saw, 
Last night, that phantom-light of thy desire. 
Orb large and slow in the East, dropping pale fire 
Along thy deep'ning tumult, so to draw 
Old love-dreams out : — for countless leagues she 

had come 
O'er kindred foam ; her footfalls echoing yet 
In the deep breast of Aral — through 



30 HYMN TO THE SEA. 

Caspian and Euxine, and the blue 
Of that famed gulf in earth's broad girdle set, 
With endless voice of waves calling to shores long 
dumb. 

With all her loveliness earth leaves me sad, 
And sadder for her loveliness. My hills 
Are sacred chalices which eve overfills 
With vintage for young gods ; and deeply glad 
In the sweet clasp of vernal boughs, the air 
At night'-fall swoons ; — but hauntings unexplained 
Steal in ; earth looks half wild and lone, 
And from her eyes I veil my own, 
And lay my heart to hers — 'the unattained, 
Youth's aching world of incompleteness throbbing 
there. 

But thou, shout on through heaven's soft, circling 
spheres. 
Still promising with that great voice of power 



HYMN" TO THE SEA. 31 

A joy to every heart, a day, an hour 
To come, outweighing all these silent years ! 
Afar thou veil'st thy Mngliness in mist, 
And stretchest in the heaven^s most deep embrace, 
Like the great Future, waste and gray. 
Dissolving day to yesterday — 
But what fair shores thou lapp'st in azure peace ! — 
What isles of joyous palms with tropic starlight 
kissed ! 

I am borne outward by this fragrant breeze, 
That seems to press its warm lips to the sand, 
And then away, beyond the singing land. 
To that hoar silence of the lone mid seas. 
Where thou, in unrelated strength, a bare 
Vkst heart, throbbest beneath the eternal eye : — 
Life soars like an enfranchised flame ; 
The naedj doubt, the hope, that came 
Before the laggard dawn to wake me, fly, 
And dim Eternity flows in like silent air. 



^ HYMN TO THE BEA. 

Do tempests swing thee, or deep, choral nights 
Chant unto murmurous slumber, yield me still 
The calm of hushed abysses ! — human ill 
Patience transfigures on her visioned heights. 
Thou dost not rive the blood-drenched deck apart, 
Nor whelm the slaver's freight of woes, but soft 
On patient, swelling breast upborne, 
Waftest the dismal burthen on. 
As trusting in the love that waits aloft. 
And the slow germ of good in man's unquiet heart. 

Ah, meagre happiness, and hopes that reach 
To some dull dream, a vapor of the sense. 
And on the plain of the old Permanence 
Are but as hasty flashes in the beach 
Of idle footprints ! make more divine 
Glad Sea, our thoughts — nor may we dully grope 
'Mid slavish fears, while thou dost girth 
The continents and isles with mirth, 
And music of unconquerable hope 



HYMN TO THE SEA. 33 

That Joy and Beauty shall be earth's as they are 
thine ! 

old consoler, that dost tenderly 

In thy great longing merge my day-bom pain, 
■ Uplift me to the stature of your strain, 
And bid all lower aspiration flee ! 
The nobler earth is built of stubborn good — 
Who brings his little vanity, his grave 

Appeal to men's applause and wonder. 
Warn him away with thy hoarse thunder. 
Flash o'er the graven sands a liberal wave, 
And let us know- no more name, memory, or blood ! 

And call the regal shadows, 'mid the roar 

Of charging waves, the tumult and the smoke, — 
That fine old Grecian in his threadbare cloak ; 
The banner pastor by blue Zurich, o'er 
Whose vine-clad summits Alps looked not in vain ; 

England's blind seer ; Toussaint, the kingly heart 

2* 



34 HYMN TO THE SEA. 

Wearing his thrice-earned martyr crown ; 
And all wlio silently let down 
The rugged slopes whereon we toss apart 
Some herald-beam of the All-Fair, some love-bought 
pain. 

Yet milder beams wooing the folded sight, 

Shed warmth far down in many a sunless nook : 
Thank God, there are no eyes in which we look 
But some heart's love doth lend them beauteous 

Hght ! 
Dreams that prefigure hopes, and hopes that take 
Fresh courage from all life ; from .starlight bold 
Sung softly in by whip-poor-wills. 
And sunset's broadening sails o'er hills 
Afar ; and from the earth that grows not old. 
Float lightly o'er our heads whether we sleep or wake. 

Alas ! to her high place thro' sea-deep tears, 
Earth wins her long, slow, agonizing way ! 



HYMN TO THE SEA. 35 

The base, triumpliant Despot of a day 
Is weary Anarch of a thousand years. 
And yet this many a spring the boughs are sheen 
With the abnost forgotten bloom ! Call, Sea, 
Unto all faithfiil souls, Doubt not, 
Aspire to lead earth's struggling thought 
Still up, bring what from full hearts gushes free. 
He who doth blend and shape the whole finds nothing 
mean. 

When morning, loosing from its crimson drifts. 
Some panting skylark overtakes, most tender 
Of such weak rivalship, and prone to render 
Homage unto great-heartedness, it lifts 
The breaking strain, and all along its lines 
Of thrilling light, its currents of pure air 
And rosy mists, winds it at will. 
Unites and separates, and still 
Wreathes it and builds anew beyond despair, 
Till light is song, song light thro' all heaven's steadfast 



36 HYMN TO THE SEA. 

know how all things change ! Night's violet star 
Bloomed red erewhile ; and thon, Sea, wearest 

away 
The glorious realm of a forgotten day, 
But lay'st the pillars of a fairer far 
Deep in thy caverned bed ; for all that ever 
Gathered about it men's delight or love, 

Or aught that simply blooms, or strives 
To make more beautiful our lives, 
In each new fabric of the world, is wove 
Afresh, and changes like the light, but passes never. 



K. F. 

You are welcome, world, to censure and carp : 
Sing and croak yourselves hoarse if you will ; 

'Tis pleasant to find 'mid blame and praise, 
One who is sweet and stable still. 

What ! you don't see that it's all in vain ? 

That Madame will neither be you nor I : 
But simply herself ; God bless her for that ! 

And grant us to prize her accordingly ! 



TWO STANZAS. 

Seem I beyond thy reach of eye 

Or lip, mailed in the arrogance 

Of life ? — friendj withhold no glance 

Of love or word of courtesy ! 

Ponder with carefulness, and own 

All win as thou — are as thou art — 
Think of the beggar in the heart — 
Think what the silent stars have known. 



TASSO. 

How darkly in the far silence 

Of my pitiless prison- walls", 

I through the night-watches sit ! 

High over me speed Orion, 
The seven stars and Aldebaran, 
Sirius and the twin beauteous gods. 

Eadiant in celestial spaces, 
Beautiful, and free, and peaceful, 
As calm as the pure heart of God ! 



40 TASSO. 

Ye winds, tliat have leave to wander 
Deep into remotest heavens, 
Waft me to those glad spheres. 

Far from the terrible noises, 
And stillness yet more terrific, 
Wild with its dread iiiterruptions. 

Might I, for an hour behind me, 

Leave the long-eating anguish and fear — 

Yes, God ! the madness — 

And feel the cool touch of midnight, 
And the dew's most fresh benediction, 
And the freedom of life — of life ! 

Away 'mid the purple bloom 

Of the hills, the south wind is strengthened 

With the sweet, wild vigor of pine. 



TASSO. 41 

The rock meets tlie fern^s soft caress, 
And that flower that meek salutation 
Sends starward, looks timid to earth. 

Ah ! the lark in the cloud-rack bathes, 
And drinks at the air's still fountains, 
And is he not thirstless and pure ? 

for life that is life ! — 

Joy in being ; hopes o'er-filling 
The blessed to-day with to-morrow, 
Faith, the queenly, that rules all hap ; 

Love, the ever-compassionate, 

The dear love of man and of woman. 

That affection whose sweets hide no sting ! 

bitter ! that ever the heart, 

Still asking impossible treasure. 

Should cast from it aught that is loving ! 



42 TASSO. 

Dear heart of my motherj mother 
Long resting from earth and anguish. 
Pity — pity, pity thy chUd ! 

what have they taken from me ? 
Thought, and will, and affection. 
And left for my brain but a throb, 

For my heart but endless thirsting, 
And the blank, burnt desert of being 
Spread awful, and blinding, and mute. 

Yet sometimes in the great Presence 
Of moments fallen from heaven. 
Whose law, though not known, I obey. 

Once more is thought disentangled. 
And there come the beautiful children 
Of the eternal spring unto me. 



TASSO. 43 



welcome then anguish and pain. 
And welcome bitter oppression ! 
Am I mad then ? — so let me remain. 



THE PKOSPECT. 

WONDROUS delight of a window 

A fair three stories high, 
With its view to the southward and west, 

And its limitless boon of sky ! 

With its murmur and coo of pigeons, 

■ Settling upon the roof — 
And a distant stir that betokens 
A world that is well aloof ! 



THE PROSPECT. 45 

And here wlien the heavens are azure, 
And no dunce that you know is near 

To hint at a weather-breeder, 
In the magical atmosphere ; 

When swallows on cleaving pinions, 

Disdaining the earth and you, 
Follow the hunt far up 

In the calm, embosoming blue ; 

Or when in the west mount Prospect 

Indues its purple ; and ah ! 
When my planet looks down on the mill-stream 

My porphyro-genita ; 

I look with a half enchantment 

Over regions that wait renown, 
The triple crest of Waltham, 

And vales of Watertown ; 



46 THE PKOSPECT. 

Over orchard, and woodland, and meadow, 
Where the Beaver its raving stills, 

O'er fair little ups and downs 
To the mighty, girdling hills. 

What silence of expectation — 
What dreaming on the to-come, 

When up through these valleys and hillsides 
Yon hive shall swarm and hum ! 

For yonder, beyond our paHng 

Of elm, and ash, and oak. 
Hangs soft on the purple distance 

A visible, brooding smoke ; 

There, masked in brick, Trimountain 
Bears somewhat snobbish and chill, 

But returns in its way the salute 
Of oak-crowned Meetinus hill 



THE PBOSPECT. 47 

But here, while I may, I am laughing 

To think how pleasant a thing. 
To fly to this skiey quiet, 

And freshen a ruffled wing. 

My poverty and its vexations 

Vanish and leave me free : — 
From Cushing's, inclusive, eastward 

To the feet of the journeying sea ; 

From the hither wall of Barnard 

To Knobscot's blue recess — 
Through lands of Locke to the south 

With acres more or less. 

In the yield of all farms and woodlands. 

We, Kobin and I, go shares ; 
And our landlords are sunbeams and waters, 

And grudge us no repairs. 



48 THE PROSPECT. 

Ah world, if you yet must have me, 
Sing me a better strain, 

Or hold me a moment, I pray, 
Lightly, and loose me again. 



THE BKIDGE OF THE DRAGON. 

GrODLiK-E is goodness ! — evermore serene, 
And young, and prodigal of lovely days ! 

A touch of magnanimity where men are mean, 
A vestal thought in earth's polluted ways, 

Forgiveness, grateful as the oaFs large green, 
A generous faith in one who errs, like rays 

Surviving the lost star, for ever make 

A huhbling in the desert for our sake. 

And so, most glad, I turn from the unreal. 

Sad shows of life, impatient lips to wet 

At an old well of freshness ; to that leal 

Sweet vision of St. Margaret ; may she yet 
3 



50 THE BEIDGE OF THE DEAGON. 

Kestore to many a heart its lost ideal, 

And help me for some moments to forget^ 
Borne on the cooling stillness of the dream, — 
How the loud multitude without blaspheme ! 

Might it have been at such an hour as this, 
An autumn eventide, that Margaret said : 

" God binds his ancient world to perfectness, 
Veined is every wind-flower with faint red. 

Five petals must the wild-brier have, no less ; 
And in the cavern's black and silent shade. 

The hoar rocks flower, like lilies in bright air. 

The secret'st thoughts of God are all so fair ! " 

Through arching boughs, o'er which the clematis 
Tosses its misty curls, and woodbines run, 

A wandering flame, and grapes swing, not the less 
For ivy near, glooms goldenly the sun. 

As through an old church- window ; — if I miss 
The pictured saints, the sounds immortal, won 



THE BRIDGE OF THE DRAGON. 51 

From fields of silence, yet be tliis tlie glory- 
Leading me to those quaint days, and to my story ! 

Summer was flaunting wide, when sudden blight 
Paled all ; the leaf, the grain, the autumn fruit 

Set in the stalk ; as on a perfect night 

The nightingale, mid-song, struck sudden mute. 

Margaret, in sad disquiet at the sight, 

Wept for her people, wept for the poor brute 

Chained to the stall : alas ! and none could tell 

What malady it was which thus befell. 

Wild, they implored the saints — the Christ, all pale. 
All powerful, drooping from the awful rood ; — 

But ah, what dismal, broken-hearted wail 
Was there — what bitter freezing in the blood. 

When tidings came, that prone across their vale. 
Long leagues away in the primeval wood, 

With breath secreting pestilential dew. 

His hideous bulk of ill, the Dragon threw ! 



52 THE BRIDGE OF THE DEAGON. . 

They sought in vain to reason of their ill. 

Frantic were some, and cried bewildered : 
" We are but playthings of Almighty will." — 

" Take we our flocks and cattle/' others said, 
" And last year's hoardings of the press and mill ; 

Alas ! what fruitful valley lies ahead. 
Or whither shall we go, that pestilence 
And aching famine may not follow hence ? " 

They called to mind the ancient prophecy 
That in the fiery Dragon's rule abhorred, 

The first year, blight would take the grain, and dry 
The honey juices, which their orchards stored ; 

But if another spring, his ghastly sigh 

Came curdling up the wind, shedding abroad 

Its sick, hoar vapors, far more dreadful blight 

On man and beast, and on the earth would light. 

Ere then, dead seers had said, worse loss will be. 
Than loss of corn and wine : — of noble dower 



THE BRIDGE OF THE DEAGON. 53 

In kniglitly skill and gentle courtesy, 
Of states' parental care : — a bitter hour 

Of helpless tears and low-lipped mockery ; 
When thought is low, and all abroad a power 

Of subtle evil rife, and few aware, 

And vernal-hearted men fail everywhere. 

At morn they celebrate the solemn mass. 

In the thin light, wan look the choristers, 
And wan the priest — a piteous sight, alas ! 

But heart-like, tenderly, the music stirs 
And throbs ; and keen, strong-winged, doth overpass 

The large-eyed multitude upon the floors, 
'Mid the all-powerful relics, bending low. 
And 'neath St. Catherine's heaven-illumined brow. 

On Margaret's lids that saintly radiance stole. 

As in the pauses of the holy chaunt. 
Like a continued harmony, her soul 

Went on in thought ; — as if some ministrant 



54 THE BKIDGE OF THE DKAGOK. 

And heavenly joy were given for eartUy dole, 

O'er lids and brow it spread — ^like streams that 
haunt 
The northern stars, waving in dreamy play, 
And warmed her kneeling shadow all away. 

To her it seemed, that from celestial height. 

The good St. Catherine leaned, and said, Dear 
child. 

The Virgin pure, mother of godlike might. 
Teaches the loving heart and undefiled. 

All it shall do ; have faith in that far light ! 
Surely it was no dream, surely she smiled, 

And bending over her still further, lo ! 

She kissed her warm eyelids, and kissed her brow. 

The noble music softly pined away : — 

And, hiding in her bosom's blameless pride. 

The glittering rosary, upon her way 
•Went Margaret forth : the heavens no good denied, 



THE BRIDGE OF THE DRAGON. 55 

No omen sweet ; transparent shone the day, 

And rich with flowings of the summer tide : — 
" But earth is sick/' she mused, " she takes no heed ;" 
And through her brain thoughts ran with crimson speed. 

From day to day more grievous waxed their bale, — 
Weeks passed and months, nor any comfort brought; 

Like one who treads a death-room, cold and pale. 
With velvet pace the light stole in and out ; 

There was no winged joy — no insect wail — 

• No hum of little life always about ; 

Till summer wasted by, and from the north 

The fierce gales blew, and drove the monster forth. 

Brief joy ! brief hope ! sad breathing space for those 
Who but take breath to meet the coming toil ! 

" When May returns," they cried, " with the early rose, 
Jesus us save, and God our sins assoil- ! 

All hope is gone from us, all dear repose. 
For guilty have we been, we may not foil 



56 THE BKIDGE AND THE DEAGON. 

Just doom." So winter passed, and roaring March, 
And April came, quick glimmering through God's arch. 

Ah, what a joy ! — along fresh winMng rills, 

Crept the young green : the swallows, many a one, 

Turned their far-travelled wings, and daffodils 
Were merry in the heart-reviving sun. 

The wind-flower pale and violet o'er the hills 
Found footing here and there, and every dun. 

Stark limb and twig emitted its soft flame ; 

And this was May, and with the rose she came. 

Did then the o'erhurthened winds of May-time rave ? 

Or little daisies babble as they reeled ? 
Or came the word on some elysian wave. 

That, to a maiden it had been revealed 
How, praise to Christ, she might her people save ? 

Alone would she go forth through wood and field. 
And passing o'er the dragon's fallen pride, 
Meet them in joy upon the further side. 



THE BRIDGE OF THE DRAGON. 57 

And they believed. Ah, blessed to believe ! 

In gentleness, in love outwearying fate, 
In Mary, mother, ever to believe ! 

love, be conquered never by old hate ! 
No noble heart of its sweet faith bereave ! 

The world is watching at your palace-gate 
With Various eyes, and aU the Past crowds here^ 
And all the Future waits with anxious fear. 

When the first taint in May's delicious breath, 
Warned them to part, with hopeful steps apace, 

They journeyed forth. Stranger, and kin, and kith, 
Slow age, and childhood with its supple grace. 

And thoughtful prime, and infancy therewith. 
Depart to skirt the mountain's shadowy base. 

And resting off the monster's further side. 

Watch from afar what fortune should betide. 

Then Silence reigned, that ancient Eremite ! 

And Margaret from her dwelling, as a star, 
3* 



58 THE BEIDGE OF THE DRAGON. 

Awakes upon some softly-bosomed night, 

Came forth : no evil taint her path might mar ; 

The May winds breathed about her their delight ; 
The heavens spread broad and calm, they looked 
not far ; 

With all their depth, their old, mysterious birth, 

They seemed to be the feeling of the earth. 

Along the valley, green, and warm, and soft, 

A fresh-leaved myrtle-branch in hand, she went ; 

Mildly the sober people of the croft 
Gazed after her ; the little skylark lent 

A soul to the embracing blue, and soon aloft 
The antique wood leaned over her, attent. 

And dropped its pictured glooms upon her fair, 

White-gleaming vesture and her shining hair. 

What thoughts her angel steps accompanied ! 
Grave legends, fragrant of the olden time ; 



THE BRIDGE OF THE DRAGON. 59 

Tales of heroic worth, and faith or deed 

Smooth tuned unto some sweet, immortal rhyme : — 
But, dearest to her heart, were thoughts which fed 

Its anxious hope — of patient love, sublime 
In noiseless triumph over force and hate, 
And brutal wrath, and lusts intemperate. 

She was with noble Daniel, given o'er 
Unto like shaggy doom ; and, unaware 

Her busy heart conceived him evermore. 
As beautiful, with heavenly look, and air 

By deathless youth upborne. Still memory bore 
Unto her side, true saints enshrined there, — 

Heroes of life-long patience and pure will, 

Who kept her heart to its calm centre still. 

Through the green darkness thus she journeyed on. 

The sun went down, the brightness fled away 
From the warm west, as when one dies, anon 

From brow to heart the white eclipse makes way, 



60 THE BRIDGE OF THE DRAGON. 

And for the time a sadder grace is won, 

So ebbed the crimson current of the day 
To its great, vanished heart ; and over all 
Looked forth the stars — ^far, still, ethereal. 

She rested her in many a haunted woof 

Of song, and dews, and light, and shadows shifting, 
As the blithe company of leaves aloof 

Danced in the fragrant night-winds calm uplifting. 
Sometimes through azure chasms, in the thick roof 

High overhead, the kindling moon went drifting 
In masses of white light on banks of gloom. 
Or shimmering Albeles rich with sudden bloom. 

And if the clouds swelled gloomily, and sent 
Their fever-tongues into the cool, dark air, 

That shrined her brightness in its moving tent, 
They harmed her not : — as nature everywhere 

Had dreamed a human dream, whereso she went. 
All things breathed peace. So wondrous night did 
wear 



THE BRIDGE OF THE *DRAGON. 61 

Into white dawn, the dawn to early day, 
And in her path the mighty serpent lay. 

All morning-fresh, like a new-fallen thought 

From God's deep life, stood she. She felt the jar, 

The air with freaks of flame, with hiss, and spot 
Staining the amber dawn, and blood- red bar, 

All elfinly alive : but she saw not, 
Nor ever on him looked ; she saw afar 

Her breathless people through the hiss and flame, 

Their babes uplifted towards her as she came. 

A moment to her heart crept the chill frost. 

One shrinking foot she set on that huge ill, 
A sunbeam on a dead trunk, century-mossed ; 

One step — another and another still ! — 
Gasping, as he would lick her hand, all lost, 

His head upturned ; — she passed, and prone he fell 
As the glad day came in — death's dull, blue veil 
Settling o'er all his limbs and rainbow mail. 



EVENINa. 

The sun lias dropped down tlirough the west ; 

And twiliglit deepens on : — 
A wink and a pale wink, here and there, 

So the stars come, one by one. 

A thoughtful life is a pleasant Hfe — 
Yea — dreams in a wild-brier lane ; 

The air soft kindling with the moon 
Midway of her stately reign. 



EVENING. 63 

Where the broad light lies wavelessly, 

Where the toiling sun has lain, 
A tree and its shadow, wondrous still, 

Kuling the grassy plain ! 

The river to the distant sea, 

Murmuring, murmuring goes ; 
Type of a life that broods and sings 

On unto its quiet close. 

Keen firefly in the barberry shade, 

That warmest it with such busy light. 

Bear with me — rest is deeper life, 
The centering of faith and might. 

Thanks — that along the shifting sands. 

As moves our sleepless tent, 
Moments of higher calm are given, 

And of more true content ! 



64 EVENING. 

Content ; tlie world falls off, and leaves 

A measure nobler grained, 
By which I try the seeming lost, 

As well as seeming gained. 

Beauty that fillest, why makest sad ? 

Thou hast no want, no haste ; 
Is it that thou o'erflowest my soul, 

And I lament the waste .? 

Dear heart, whose pulses with my own 
Keep their mysterious move. 

That fiUest every transient pause. 
With music of thy love ; 

Art not thou patient too to-night. 
Divining what true strength. 

What life is ours, what joy to come, 
And far-off calm at length ? 



BEKTHA. 

The leaves have fallen from the trees, 
For under them grew the buds of May ; 
And such is constant Nature's way ; 

Let us accept the work of her hand : 
If the wild winds sweep hare the height, 
Still something is left for heart's delight — 

Let us but know- and understand. 

Bertha looked from the rocky cliff, 

Whose foot the tender foam-wreaths kissed — 
Towards the outer circle of mist 

That hedged the old and wonderful sea ; 



66 BERTHA. 

Below her as if with endless hope, 
Up the beach's marbled slope, 

The waters clomb unweariedly. 

Many a long-bleached sail in sight, 
Hovered awhile, then flitted away 
Beyond the opening of the bay. 

Fair Bertha entered her cottage late : 
" He does not come," she said, and smiled, 
" But the shore is dark and the sea is wild, 

And, dearest Father, we still must wait." 

She hastened to her inner room. 
And silently mused there alone : 
" Three springs have come — three winters gone, 

And still we wait from hour to hour ; 
But earth waits long for her harvest time, 
And the aloe, in the northern clime, 

Waits an hundred years for its flower. 



BERTHA. 67 

" Under the apple boughs as I sit 

In May-time, when the robin's song 
Thrills the odorous winds along, 

The innermost heaven seems to ope — 
I think, though the old joys pass from sight, 
Still something is left for heart's delight — 

For life is endless and so is hope. 



" If the aloe wait an hundred years ; 
And God's times are so long, indeed. 
For simple things, as flower and weed. 

That gather only the light and gloom, — 
For what great treasures of joy and dole. 
Of life, and death perchance, must the soul 

Ere it flower in heavenly peace, find room ! 

" I see that all things wait in trust. 
As feeling afar God's distant ends — 
And unto every creature, he sends 



68 BEETHA. 

That measure of good tliat fills its scope : 
The marmot enters the stiflfening mould. 
And the worm its dark, sepulchral fold, 

To hide there with its beautiful hope." 

Yet Bertha waited on the cliff, 

To catch the gleam of a coming sail. 
And the distant whisper of the gale 

Winging the unforgotten home : — 
And hope at her yearning heart would knock, 
"When a sunbeam on a far-off rock 

Married a wreath of wandering foam. 

Was it well ? you ask — (nay, was it ill ?) 

Who sat last year by the old man's hearth, — 
The sun had passed below the earth, 

And the first star locked his western gate- 
When Bertha entered her darkening home, 
And smiling, said : "He does not come, 

But, dearest Father, we still can wait ! " 



SUSANNA. 

Weary Sea, 
Spare us your dull monotony ! • 
Up in the noble hill-land are we, 
Unto its breezes we trust our fame — 
Nothing here is weary or tame. 

What jubilant springs these hills have greened — 
What silent snows have intervened — 
What magical summers over them leaned — 
What autumns lighted the sombre wood, 
And crimsoned it, as with its own heart's blood ! 



70 SUSANNA. 

The wife of Ernest, in yonder hut. 
Will tell you how many years have put 
Their green on the oak, and dropped the nut, 
Since this tall grove of walnut-trees 
Shook their young tresses in the breeze. 

The mountain-spring sings down this way, 
Through night and twilight into day ; — 
She told me how many inches, the play 
Of the frolicsome waters, had spread, 
Since first she knew it, the narrow bed. 

I said to her, " Mother, 'tis well 
In such fixed peace as yours to dwell ; 
No sad mutation you chronicle ; 
Nothing is stable within my range, 
But the stern, old principle of change." 

She was stooping over her herbs in the grass— 
Snake-root, and flag, and sassafras, 
"Winter-green and — you know — a mass 



SUSANNA. 71 

Of fragrant rubbish, — as the bent mast rears, 
Sbe uplifted her eighty years. 

She pointed to her hut by the wood — 

Sixty years and more it has stood, 

Very lowly, you see, and rude — 

" Much the same is that windy shell, 

As when Ernest and I went there to dwell. 

" Young were we both, with little care ; 
While he went out to hunt the bear, 
I kept the hearth or took my share 
In the garden-work — till Ernest was given, 
And Mary and Jane by gracious Heaven. 

" I thought Grod's singers I should not hear, 
Or the locusts in the maples near. 
In the hot noontide, for the music dear 
Of my roof-tree birds — but God is good, 
And where he is, no solitude. 



72 . SUSANNA. 

" Our silent Ernest I sought to teachj 
When two years old^ the birds' glad speech, 
The quail, the wren, the cat-bird's screech ; 
He looked where I pointed and shook his head, 
He did not hear the words I said. 

" Mary, the next, no soulful sound 

E'er heard or uttered ; the mole in the ground 

Is not more still and fancy-bound 

Than she, poor child ! — only our Jane 

Can hear my words and answer again. 

'^ Jane is married and lives below : 
Ernest, the father, under the snow 
Was buried ten strong winters ago ; 
But life since then has not stood still ; 
I journey on through good and ill. 

" Change is the winged child of Grod ; 
Lay off, if need, each cherished good, 
And thus renew the noble blood ; 



SUSANNA. • 7^ 

As nature gently puts away 

Her sweetest shows — her Fall — her May. 

" But 'tis not always strife or rest, 
Not outward worst, or outward best, 
Not north, south, east or west, 
That' wafts its seasons to the soul. 
And leads it to the All-Good and Whole. 

" Yon singing Pine's majestic crest 
Looks now as when I saw it first ; 
Yet every beam and breath have nursed 
Its constant bloom, and to the seer 
'Tis other than it was last year." 

Filling her apron with her stock 

Of herbs, she said, " The mallows and dock 

Grow southward ; a cleft of the rock 

Shelters the blood-root ; and fennel sweet 

And winter-green you there will meet. 
4 



74 SUSANNA. 

" Here's bitter that will give you health ; 
There's sweet that takes the life by stealth ; 
And this I call ' old woman's wealth ; ' 
It soothes the nerves and coaxes sleep ; " 
And she gave me of it to drink and keep. 

See there, " God's Smile ! " it almost girds 
Our mountain's base — and hark, the birds ! 
How endless then are His wise words ! 
" Sunbeams and breaths " — to appear again 
In noble lives of women and men ! 



THE SHAH. 

Nay, said tlie Persian, you are wrong ; 
We are the centre ; earth stands still. 
And the sun and stars revolve at will 

Kound and round forever. 
The Shah in the midst stands up erect ; 
We and the Shah are the Gods' elect, 

All things were made for us. 

regal Persian, had you eyes 
On your grand height, for what goes on 
Beyond the Shah's dominion, 



76 THE SHAH. 

Well miglit you open tliem ! 
'Tis good to look at you and smile, 
Though we plume our wings and say the while, 

Look here, what a mistake ! 

'Tis hut the breach of an old command, 
To covet for self what's made for all, 
The meanest of sins since Adam's fall : — 

Let us not laugh at it ! 
How many stand up and say in effect. 
We and the Shah are the Grods' elect, 

All things were made for us ! 

Sun, that sweetly laughest o'er all, 
winds, that of the open heaven 
Sing to us morn and eke at even. 

Patience, bear with us long ! 
We are not base, we are but dull — 
Plead on, till human souls are full. 

And match your light and song ! 



KEASONABLENESS. 

Would but the sun shine, 
Would but the rain cease, 

Would but dear Iris come — 
Then would there be peace ! 

See how the sun shines ! 

The rain begins to cease, 
Iris herself is here ; 

And, prithee, where is peace ? 



Loud heart, that sleep'st when the world's awake, 
I pray you sleep now ; go to your rest, 

owl-like and wild, and let me take 

The calm and the full delight, that o'er 

My quiet room the moonbeams pour. 
Into my arms and unto my breast. 
And ask for nothing mote. 



All's to gain, 
All is to come between us twain ! 
never can serve 
Fruition and conquered reserve 
To feed the soul with, a bliss, 

So momently waking, 
So troubled, but deep as deatb, 
With a surface doubt and an under faith 
Over it breaking, — 
As this which we feel — as this ! 



THE CENCrS DKEAM, 
(in the night pkevious to hek execution.) 

CovEK me^ mother of Grod, with, silence and pity ! 

Let the noise of the pleaders cease, the jar of their 
wranglings — 

And all the confusion of crowds, the gazing and won- 
der ! 

And again, as of old, when the sunshine awoke and 
laughed through me. 

We twain, little brother of mine, little Eocco and I, 

Will go each with an arm round the other, out into 
the fields. 



THE CENCl'S DREAM. 81 

My KoccOj he died, as we know ; — I remember, I shud- 
dered, 

And gasped, as if heaven had drawn all its breath in, 
for horror. 

But then he was safe, he and Cristo, no worse could 
befall them ; 

And together they lay, with the twilight upon them, 
the darkness 

Of earth yet unpassed, and white dawnings of peace. 
But somehow 

My Kocco is with me, is here — comes hither to meas- 
ure 

An hour for once by its sunshine. — And, darHng, to 
wander 

With thee is so good ! to glide o'er the sunset Cam- 
pagna. 

As if we had wings, and we have, — and gaze in the 
fire-well 

That sucks back the broad day to its heart — and 
watch in returning 



82 THE CENCl'S DKEAM. 

The procroant east, as it slowly heaps up towards the 
zenith, 

Its violet and rose, for a twelve-hour's remembrance 
and promise 

To earth in her darkness ! — Such heart-ease I feel,and 
such gladness ! 

Thou leadest — I follow — and see, of all fields for re- 
posing. 

Thou alightest with me here! — here, where hearts- 
ease is growing and purpling 

The infinite level ! — ^And 0, dost thou cover me with 
it? 

Head, bosom and arms, with the wealth more than 
regal ? — and leaning 

Thy forehead to mine, make better their breath with 
thine own, 

As thou murmurest deeply, " Poor child,'' 0, at that,, 
how mine eyes 

Grow dark all at once, with wild tears ! 0, what I 
have suffered. 



THE CENCl'S DREAM. 83 

The angels may know, who can bear it — but never 
thou, darling ! 

"Little sister beloved, — through what paths the In- 
finite leads us, 

That we miss not the beautiful end, which, below our 
horizon, 

Smiles upward to Him, who could guess ? his minis- 
ters know we, 

Nor by presence, nor sign, nor like favor. To one 
sends he a mother, 

With patience and motherly urgings, to mould the 
young spirit 

To faultless proportions, to strength and high-hearted 
endurance ; — 

With like end to another, it may be, a father like ours. 

Thou hast ' suffered ! ' fearful to think, since in 
hatred, he struck us. 

From life and thy side, what tortures and fear may 
have rent thee ! 



84 THE CENCl'S DREAM. 

But round thee at darkest, sorae pure-eyed intelligence 

waited. 
And anguished to show thee one glimpse of the High- 

est's arcana. 
And if, overwrought and o'ermaddened, thou had'st 

erred and stumbled, 
The Blessed himself would have hastened to lift and 

forgive thee. 
But listen, and know what great joy may be thine in 

the future ! " 

Eocco, thou see'st how my face is all kindled at 
thine ! 

"This flower, which thy sweet body crushes, where- 
withal too, I mantle 

And hide thee from trouble, is only the mortal fore- 
shadow 

Of beds of unperishing sweet and contentment, which 
yonder 



THE CENCf S DREAM. 85 

In ineffable azure we make thee ; — but in regions of 

twilight, 
Wc spread for our father, the rue — great meadows of 

rue — 
Kound and under still, rue — which means sorrow, and 

sorrow, and sorrow/' 

pity ! — some heart's-ease for him, too ! 

" Nay, listen ! when ages 

And ages have told their slow tale in the rock, there 
shall haply 

Go forth on its timorous venture to heaven, some 
breathing. 

Sigh of a soul for its lost and never-returning, — 

For a love that was trampled, a peace that was mur- 
dered, a goodness 

Flung back with incredible mockings — and thence- 
forth our father, 



86 THE CENCl'S DKEAM. 

Witli gradual change^ shall fade fromtlie place of his 
anguish ; 

Fade thence and grow into light, till the angels who 
dwell there, 

Distinguish and hasten to meet him. Could'st thou 
see, little sister, 

How fair he will be in that luminous air — and fatherly- 
tender ! '' 

Christ, may this be ! 

" If earth nourish one being — an angel 

More constant than spring, with its delicate myrtle, 

who shall labor 
And watch to the end ; — resisting and watching 

through darkness. 
And wrestling with demons to win him, she. shall plant 

in his spirit 
Some germ of a faith in the ever unchangeable love 
And goodness eternal, that, little by little, shall gather, 



87 

And grow^ and redeem liim ; — as, deep in the fire of 

even, 
Is born the soft ray of the planet, and nighfc through 

its silence, 
Throbs surely and slow to its fulness of stars. And 

thou — 
Thou only wilt do this — wilt do it and save him — thou 

Angel ! " 

How I shrieked ! how I tore up the stillness ! par- 
don, grave judges. 

Awful — black-bearded — there waiting to sentence ! 
but Kocco, 

My brother, was here — and whither he went, most 
strangely 

I saw not. Perhaps he returned into bliss — and it 
may be. 

He goes to spread meadows of rue — other meadows of 
rue — 

Rue, under and round, which means sorrow, and sor- 
row, and sorrow. 



APPLEDOEE. 

Look northward from tMs rock and see, 
Half imaged in tlie dreamy stone, 

Two heads — a veiled Eternity, 
A Destiny, stern, cold and lone. 

This grimly fronts the aspiring wave. 
And seems to say. Strive as you will. 

And lash my brow all idly brave, 
You are a trembling vassal still. 



APPLEDORE. 89 

That, with a human softness, nears 
The breathing Sea, and says, child, 

Judge not of life by partial years — 
In me all things are reconciled ! 



UNDINE. 

There is a small and daring sprite, 

She is three years old to-night, — 

Whom I call, La Motte Fouque, 

After your fairy Undine ! 

Mid her wind-blown tresses, bright 

Shifts and plays the captive light, 

As the northern morn in fair 

Berenice's golden hair ; 

Clouds, her eyes, which cannot keep 

Their sweet lightnings save in sleep ; 



UNDINE. 91 

And about her mobile mouth. 

Fresh with north and warm with south, 

Importunate for their fees, 

Come and go invisible bees. 

Would you the magic will resist 

Of this elf monopolist ? 

She is not like Atlas, curled, 

Stooping 'neath the gray old world. 

But she takes it lithe and bland, 

Easily in her small hand. 

Spring is hers and summer flowers. 

And fair autumn's mellow hours. 

And winter, 'mid his hummocks set, 

Delights to be her hideous pet. 

This is what all people say 

Of our charming Undine. 

Erewhile I looked upon her face. 

And said. It is good, it lights apace ; — 

Fills with soul as lilies with light ; 



92 UNDINE. 

And, to keep it ever in sight, 
Wrote in my heart upon that day 
The story of sweet Undine ; 
Who roamed at wiQ the idle air, 
Empty, alas ! of thought and care, 
Till love came, with the old surprise 
Of a soul for the elfin eyes. 

Better than praise thy tale doth move. 
Poet, that singest so well of love ! 
Thanks, for all that on the earth 
Seek the sign of the second birth ! 
Accept the gratitude I pay. 
Thinking of this our Undine. 
What Love creates. Love best can teach ; 
And as we would that she should reach 
Upward, from fruitful hour to hour. 
To purity, and sight, and power. 
So we would lead her heart to know 
The love of all things, high and low ; 



UNDINE. 93 

The skieS; with sun and moon impearled, 
And underneath, the common world ; 
And make ourselves, aught else before, 
Lovely, that she may love us more. 



HALF AWAKE. 

Ah, working-day life, 
Pain, struggle and strife — 
Ado and undoing, 
Action and rueing , * 
Much undertaking, 
Yet ne'er a thing making ; 
Purposing featly 
To break as completely ! 
What do I live for ? 
What do I grieve for ? 



HALF AWAKE. 95 

Millions like me have lived, 
Millions like me have grieved ; 
Of each be it said 
That earth was his bed; 
And there he lay dreaming : 
For a day, however it seemed, 
He dreamed ; — for a night, he dreamed that he 
dreamed. 



THE WAY APPOINTED. 

Easily moved, easily swayed 

Hither and thither, 
As easily hoping 

And dismayed. 

Up in the clouds — over the hill, 

Higher and higher, 
Down, down in the meadow, 

And. lower still, 



THE WAY APPOINTED. 97 

Shadows over me, far, afar — 

Moving and moving — 
Dropping my eyelids. 

There too they are. 

The 8un, a golden key I win, 

Turning and turning, 
Opes the sweet heavens 

And lets me in. 

Lovers, 'tis true, lovers a score ; 

Sighing and sighing ; 
One, right one, were better. 

Yet, fate, send me more. 

Friends leave me, how, I cannot tell ; 

Yearning and yearning. 
Others rise after, 

Loved as weU. 



y8 THE WAY APPOINTED. 

In blasted hopes new ones thrive ; 

Joying and grieving, 
Ephemerals wholly 

Help me to live. 

Mother, she planned — Father with strife 

Planted and watered — 
For what, are you asking ? 

To fit me to life. 

World, said I, your tasks I do not refuse ; 

Take me and try me ; 
Turn me and mould me, 

And put me to use. • 

Millers the water, sailors the wind ; 

HeadfuU and heartfuU — 
You will not ? dull world, you, — 

Then go — never mind. 



THE WAT APPOINTED. 99 

Vainly I veil — your eyes shoot between ; 

Fairly and frankly, 
I am a maiden 

Turned of eighteen. 



KEISTEL'S SOLILOQUY. 

My log house stands by the river : — 

Not higher than the topmost swell 

At the vernal flood : — ^but I have an attic, 

And over it stately poplars shiver, 

And lend me twenty arms ecstatic 

To lift me over the surge. And well, 

When the roaring freshet threatens, I know, 

And, taking my meat and honey, go 

Into the leafy nook above ; 

Whence I watch the river, raving 

Up from its yellow depths, and the broad 



khistel's soliloquy. 101 

Lagunas, islanding many a grove ; 

And if the waters me defraud 

Of homestead and home, and turn my cabin 

Into a raft, — I do not murmur 

More than a thrush, whose nest in summer, 

A twisted branch of ash displaces ; 

For are there not a million places. 

And leaves in the wood for the minstrel free, 

And a million logs as well for me ? 

Such is my manhood's outer shell. 

Over many a flowery swell 

I follow the trail to hunter dear. 

The plain's long-bearded nobles rear 

Their ponderous fronts, and snuff with doubt 

The air my rifle scatters about. 

Whether at midnight or at noon, 

At the hour beloved of the rising moon, 

When the deer come forth from their shady lair, 

I watch by the licks, or in the darlc 



102 keistel's soliloquy. 

Kecesses of the wilding park. 

From wood and field/ and flood and air, 

Treasures of beauty and of use 

My lowliness do not refuse. 

The summer robe of the bison falls 

In shady softness down my walls ; 

The stag's coat hides mine earthen floor ; 

His antlers, branched like a sapling oak. 

Are cornices for window and door. 

And plumes that tropic winds have strook, 

In tapestry of varied thought, 

By hands of forest maidens wrought, 

Come to my cabin, without strife 

To live again in a human life. 

And yet I wage no needless war ; — 
No wanton hand strikes down the wing, 
Or stays upon the bended plain 
The bison's stately journeying. 
No form of lowliest grace I mar ; 



kristel's soliloquy. 103 

Nor in the forest's wide domain, 
Nor in my garden's round, I cull 
Aught good, or sweet, or beautiful. 
But all the more to dedicate 
To service pure its gentle state. 

True, in a corner of my hut 
Is a little shrine, whereon I put 
Fresh-blooming children of the wood — 
Forget-me-not and the solitude- 
Shunning linnsea. Unto the same, 
I consecrate the winged flame 
Of columbine, and that which stole 
The innermost secret of the sky, 
The water-lily's vestal soul. 
With the sweetness in the clover hived 
So deep. This is in memory 
Of one, whose love my love outlived. 
And so, to steep 
In memory all that I should keep. 



104 kristel's soliloquy. 

The queen magnolia there I set, 

And circle it with low mignonette. 

For I think ofttimes, altho' her sphere, 

Kadiant and high, I come not near. 

Nor ever can again — that still 

If I surround her thought with love, 

And evei-more a patient will 

To watch, to strive, to wait and prove 

The peace heaven offers, to the end, — 

Out of my pain and silent strife. 

Some fragrance God will take, and "blend 

An unknown sweetness with her life. 

The prairie sways, and the river rolls, 

And the sun and the moon — and nothing is lost 

In all the skies' unmeasured coast. 

Nothing too in the kingdom of souls. 

Broad stream, that yieldest silently 

Such largess to the noonday sky, 

Hear how the brooding cushat mourns 



kristel's soliloquy. 106 

Her love. We will not mourn or weep, 
Or lock ourselves in wintry sleep ; 
But bide in peace heaven's large returns. 
All that he has and is, who gives, 
With whom no earth-born wish survives 
To hoard his little grief or bliss, 
Go,d his great debtor surely is, 
And pays infinity. Who meet 
The coming fate half-way, and fling 
Their blessed treasures at her feet. 
Shall feel, through all her clamoring. 
Her hard eye quail ; she knows 'twere vain 
To empty what God brims again. 



TWENTY-SECOND OF FEBRUAKY. 

In bygone days when we were weak, 

Some strong men by ns stood, 
Like primary rocks to front the storm 

And buttress the infant wood. 
Then we had Adams, and Otis, and Lee, 

Then we had FrankHn and Jay, 
Then we had Washington, kingman of all ; 

Great names — great men were they. 

There were baby truths in those old days, 
And there was full-grown wrong ; 

They smote the last with iron blows, 
And helped the babes along. 



TWENTY-SECOND OF FEBRUARY. 107 

Chivalrous times and men were they — 

Hearts of the grand old hreed, 
Gaston de Foix, and the Knight sans peur^ 

And Koderick the Cid ! 

What did they know of party bribes ? 

When did they kneel to pelf ? 
And when were country, and man, and God 

Less in their deeds than self ? 
Were the mountains taller in those days ? 

The streams more swift and strong, 
That they caught the trick of a nobler grace 

And of a manlier tongue ? 

Northern aurora, speed your light 

Into our skies' cold gray, 
Appeal to the glad to-morrow 

From recreant to-day ! 
shame this backward-looking glance, 

shame this paltry fear. 



108 TWENTY-SECOND OF FEBRUARY. 

And men of might, be men of faith, 
Far-eyed, deep-eyed and clear ! 

Valor is valor over the world. 

Ah ! do not think to gain 
The hero's glory and meed of praise. 

Without .his wound and pain. 
'Mid well-won palms, earth's sovereigns, sit 

On high in joyful calm, 
But a bleeding heart is in each one's hand- 

A heart for every palm* 

Past days, — past men — but present still ! 

Men who could meet the hour ; 
And so bore fruit for every age 

And amaranthine flower ; 
Who proved that noble deeds are faith, 

And living words are deeds ; 
And left us dreams beyond their dreams — 

And higher hopes and needs. 



TWENTY-SECOND OF FEBRUARY. 109 

Not often great in name or place, — 

Grreat but to think and dare, 
Some steadfast eyes yet look to truth, 

Some steadfast hearts watch there. 
And when they speak or when they sing, 

Strange music seems to rise. 
But the angels know 'tis the burthen old 

Keturning to the skies. 



CAMILLE. 

I BORE my mystic chalice unto eartli, 

With vintage which, no lips of hers might name 
Only in token of its alien birth, 

Love crowned it. with his soft, immortal flame ; 
And 'mid the world's wide sound. 

Sacred reserves and silences breathed round 

A spell, to keep it pure from low acclaim. 

With joy that dulled me to the touch of scorn, 

I served : not knowing that of all life's deeds. 
Service was first — nor that high powers are born 



CAMILLE. Ill 

III humble uses ; — fragrance-folding seeds 

Must so through flowers expand, 
Then die : — God witness that I blest the Hand 
Which laid u})on my heart such golden needs ! 

And yet I felt through all the blind, sweet ways 
Of life, for some clear shape its dreams to blend ; 

Some thread of lioly art to knit the days 
Each unto each, and all to some fair end, 
Which through unmarked removes, 
Should draw me upward, even as it behooves 
One whose deep spring-tides from His heart descend. 

To swell some vast refrain beyond the sun, 
The very weed breathed music from its sod : 

And Night and Day in ceaseless antiphon, 

Kolled off through windless arches in the broad 

Abyss. — Thou saw'st I too 
Would in my i)lace have blent accord as true. 
And justified tliis great enshrining, God ! 



112 CAMILLE. 

Dreams ! — Stain it on tlie bending amethyst, 
That one who came with visions of the Prime 

For guide, somehow her radiant pathway missed, 
And wandered in the darkest gulf of Time ! 

No deed divine, thenceforth. 
Stood royal in its far-related worth — 
No God, in truth, might heal the wounded chime. 

how ? I darkly ask. — And if I dare 

Take up a thought from this tumultuous street 
To the forgotten Silence, soaring there 

Above the hiving roofs, its calm depths meet 

My glance with no reply. 
Might I go back and spell this mystery 
In that new stillness at my mother's feet ! 

1 would recall with importunings long 

Her so sad soul, once pierced as with a knife ; 
And cry. Forgive ! think, youth's tide was strong, 
And the full torrent, shut from brain and life. 



CAMILLE. 113 

Plunged through the heart, until 
It rocked to madness, and the overstrained will 
Grew wild, then weak, in the despairing strife. 

And ever I think, What warning voice should call, 
Or show me bane from food, with tedious art. 

When love, the perfect instinct, flower of all 
Divinest potencies of choice, whose part 

Was set 'mid stars and flame. 
To keep the inner place of God, became 
A blind and ravening fever of the heart ! 

I laugh with scorn that men should think them praised 
In women's love ; — chance-flung in weary hours. 

By sickly fire to bloated worship raised ! 

dream long-lost, so sweet of vernal flowers !— 

Wherein I stood, it seemed, 
And gave a gift of queenly mark ; — I dreamed 
Of passion's joy aglow in rounded powers. 



114 CAMILLE. 

/ dreamed ! The roar, the tramp, the burthened air 
Pour round their sharp and subtle mockery. 

Here go the eager-footed men — and there 
The costly beggars of the world float by, 

Lilies that toil nor spin — 
How should they know so well the weft of sin, 
And hide me from them with such sudden eye ? 

But all the roaring crowd begins to make 

A whirl of humming shade :— for since the day 

Is done, and there^s no lower step to take. 

Life drops me here. Some rough, kind hand I pray, 

Thrust the sad wreck aside, 
And shut the door on it ! a little pride, 
That I may not offend who pass this way ! 

And this is all ! 0, thou wilt yet give heed ! 

No soul but trusts some late, redeeming care — 
But walks the narrow plank with bitter speed. 

And, straining through the sweeping mist of air, 



CAMILLE. 115 

In the great tempest-call, 
And greater silence deepening through it all, 
Refuses still, refuses to despair. 

Some further end — whence thou refitt'st with aim 

Bewildered souls perhaps — ? Some breath in me, 
By thee, the purest, found devoid of blame. 

Fit for large teaching — ? Look, I cannot see, 
I can but feel ! — Far off. 

Life seethes and frets, and from its shame and scoff, 

I take my broken crystal up to Thee. 



ARIADNE. 

Shame on these tears ! disown them, lofty heart ! 
On this bald peak where now I stand alone, 
Like some poor weed, sea-driven and flung apart, 
Bear witness all ye Gods, that I disown 
Their traitorous record ! — Yet nay, let them run 
Into the deep-mouthed wave — and take along 
Memories I want no more ; — soft, rustling throng 
Of old, untold delights, pass, every one ! 
With empty arms outstretched, I cry, sea. 
That took so much, take these ! — see there ! I fling 
The clinging warmth of that first kiss to thee. 
The pulses' lingering lightnings, that they bring 



ARIADNE. 117 

Unto this bitter, burning soul no more 

The wild renewal of that past delight, 

When love sprang sudden to its perfect height. 

Unfolded sweet, yet fearful, like a flower 

'Neath the mute throbbings of the conscious night ! 

Pass, pass, as ravings of a drunken soul ! 

Yet, Gods, who rule this empty, awful world. 

Who mete to highest and meanest things their dole, 

Ye know no sight more fearful than one hurled 

From some great joy into a doom of pain 

O'er-deep for fathoming — no sight save this. 

Of a proud heart that flings away all bliss 

Of hope or memory ; nor asks again 

The friendly shadow of some Httle grief. 

Or some sharp pang, its numbness to overbear. 

But lightning-proof and desolate, a leaf 

Left living and alone in wintry air. 

Meets feelingless and dumb the evil wind. 

Nor cares what woes are laboring up behind. 



118 AKIADNE. 

Still, still a sickening sense creeps o'er me. Still, 
Tethys, wliose mad daughters, every one, 
Clap their white hands above the waters dun, 
My heart is like thy waves, that proudly fill 
And roar, yet bound and break when all is done. 
Speed, bitter droppings, to the bitter sea ! 
All worthiness is gone, all memory 
Of truth, and nobleness, and charity ! 
And I, alone, and pressed by this great void, 
Bend shameless to the earth with unalloyed 
And boundless wretchedness. I am no more 
Than a dull snail left houseless on the shore. 
Hide me, pitying Gods ! Ay, let me find 
Some wind- wrung peak or cataract-gated cave. 
Whose thunderous roof through the dread years shall 

bind 
These throbs to silence ! — This, fearful Powers, 
That send the black, inexplicable hours, 
This, or the dear and all-forgetting grave ! 



SIESTA. 

The old apple tree. 

Noblest on the hill — 
Takes me in its arms ; 
There I lie a-dreaming, 
Dreaming at my will. 

Birds and birdlings chirping, 
Think not I am there — 

While they trill wild notes, 
Think not of my dreaming 
In the scented air. 



120 SIESTA. 

(Pray you do not mark ! 

I pray you shut the doors 
On your fine brains — be sure 
'Tis only foolish dreaming. 

Unfit for wits like yours.) 

Leaves glance light above — 
Boughs beneath me yield, 

Moving like long waves, 
Or golden rye a-dreaming 
On a July field. 

My eyelids softly closing, 
Barer sights I see ; 

While all the outer music. 
All the gay leaves' dreaming 
Seem to follow me. 

Feeling, scarcely thought. 
Old sweet grief and mirth, 



SIESTA. . 121 

Like gold fruit are hanging, 
'Mid green boughs of my dreaming, 
Far above the earth. 

Hope and bird-eyed fancy 

Midway chirp and sing ; 
A rainbowed mist of music— 
A hum of cherubs' dreaming — 

The sound of blossoming. 

Peace, a deeper peace — 

Joy, a fuller tide, 
Like swans on glassy waves 
Come gliding down my dreaming, 

Gently side by side. 

Say you, little wren, 

That our life of mirth 

Distances a king's. 

As the sky in azure dreaming 

Distances the earth .^ 
6 



122 . SIESTA. 

Well said ! — Noisy world, 
Custom's weedy throng, 

Here I give the go-by — 
For they match not in my dreaming 
With your wing and song. 

Hearken, little bird ! 

When God, round your heart 
Laid those mottled wings, 
He gave you heavenly dreaming 

For your life-long part. 

I, my wild translator 

Of that upper bliss. 
On my doubtful pinions. 
Fanned through some strange dreaming. 

Ere a dream like this. 



THE CEICKET TO OCTOBER. 

The long, pure light, that brings 
To earth her perfect crown of bliss. 
Wanes slow — the thoughtful drooping of the grain, 
And the faint breath of the earth-loving things 
Say this. 

Oft when the dews at night 
Clasp the cool shadows, all in vain, 
I look along the meadows level dark 
To see the fire-fly lift her tender light 
Again. 



124 THE CRICKET TO OCTOBER. 

From the tliick-woven shade, 
Where, on the red-cupped moss to-day, 
A crimson ray alit, the blue-bird sends 
One melancholy note up the brown glade 
This way. 

Last night, I saw an eft 
Crawl to the worm's forsaken bier, 
To die there, as I think : — beetle nor bee, 
Nor the ephemera's ethereal weft 
Sport here. 

Yet great has been life's zest. 
Almost how the grass grows, I know, — 
And the ant sleeps ; the busy summer long, 
I have kept the secret of the ground-bird's nest 
Below. 

But sweeter my employ 
In some still hours. I seem to live 



THE CRICKET TO OCTOBER. 125 

Too near the beating of earth's mighty heart, 
Not to have learned in part how she can joy 
And grieve ! 

'Twas on a night last June, 
Into the clear, bold sky, 
The little stars stole each with separate thrill. 
And the mossed fir-top woke its mystic rune 
Close by. 

Upon yon westering slope. 
Two glorious human shapes there stood, 
Eosy with twilight, listening to my song : 
I knew I sang to them of love and hope, 
Life's good. 

The little stars' soft rays 
Again thrill through their realm of peace ; 
One shadow haunts the slope, — a song I sing 
To match tlie broken music of her days — 
Then cease. 



Dim Eden of delight, 
In whom my heart springs upward like a palm ; 
Loving your morning strength, your evening calm, 

Your star-inspired Night — 
A sweeter breath blows upward from the sea. 
Like a fresh hope from God's eternity ; — 

Latest and best, are you then coming ? 

Nay — shadow is not here ; 
Save of the rocks upon the gleaming sands. 
And that which moves beside me with clasped hands. 



127 



A suffering shadow, drear 
With watching, it would seem, the endless swell. 
Great, white-faced waves, sent ceaselessly to quell 

The stern and silent shore with thunder. 



TEMUR. 

When Temur, chief of OmarS;, died, 
God's angels bore liis soul away 

Unto full-flowered Paradise : — 
There, as the Persian prophets say, 
No flower shall feel decay — 
Perpetual are the splendid skies. 

But Temur was a tyrant fell : 
And Seyd, whose fair first-born had known 

The terrors of the Despot's sway, 
Murmured, as on his eyelids shone 

Eays from the burning throne, 
"Whitherward oped the angel's way. 



TEMUR. 129 

But God, the just, wlio now and then 
Sjjcaks in the bouFs emphatic dream. 

Took Seyd the murmurer, that night, 
And led him to Kur's wakeful stream, 
Which lay in the moon's beam, 
Blooming with lilies of her light. 

There curved the mountain line away ; 
And tliere, the murnmring lapse of blue 

Let in .between green silences. 
To ripple the level smoothness through ; — 
And 'mid soft light and dew, 
Temur's hushed palace rose into the skies. 

What life in every peaceful thing ! 

What trance of living, joyful might ! 

The heavens may breathe it unto men, 

And bulbuls by the charmed light 

Sing it to sacred night, 

But who may utter it again ? 
6* 



130 TEMUK. 

Seyd saw the open, blooming heaven ; 
And the rich well-springs of the air 

Freshening the overburthened world ; 
And o'er dark brows of guilt and care, 

The intermitted peace — Grod's fair, 
Soft-visioned Night of night unfurled. 

" All Beauty is of God the good ; 
Yon scarf of stars his angels wove, 

And earth is sweet of Paradise ; " 
He mused ; — " wretch, that would'st remove 
Aught from his saving love. 
Or stint his patient ministries ! " 



THE WILD PLUM TKEE. 

You should liave seen it, sire ; a vicious thing, 
Knotting defiance in its crabbed twigs, 
And arguing with full fifty bitter leagues 

Of sea-winds maddening on a rocky shore. 

No wonder ! well, half-doubting I uptore 
And bore it inland — doubting, set it here, 
Where it might feel the garden's warmth and cheer, 

And only heaven's forbearing winds might come. 



132 THE WILD PLUM TREE. 

Only its attic vigor to maintain, 
I fed it each quick-blooded spring 
With salt to thirsting, and it grew, my king, 

Straightened, and bloomed, as never plum before. 

Here is the fruit. So please you, taste and see 
How nature straight replies to such a call ; — 
And yonder has my plum, beneath the wall, 

The warm earth colonized with fruitful trees. 



KAPHAEL MENGS AND HIS "HOLY 
FAMILY." 

So reverently he treads 
This home where heaven is, 

That you the steps might hear 

Of the very angels near, 
Almost as soon as his. 

Pure breathing of a soul 

Whose- depths we only guess, 
Since unto it was given 
To know so much of heaven, 
So much he could express ! 



134 RAPHAEL MENGS AND HIS " HOLY FAMILY/ 

txazing, the old ideal, 

Paler, more rapt and still, 
With sadly wondering eyes, 
Just dips from her far skies, 
And shames my laggard will. 

Humility and love. 

Perfume of lowliest sod — 
I yet can think that they 
Winged our close world one day, 

And went untouched to Grod. 



SEASIDE. 

Gro wear your tortured smile ; speak and say nought ; 

Be laughed at by your diamonds— I prefer 
My light, loose garb — freedom of face and thought, 

And this uncompromising thunderer. 

What do I where you mince and compliment, 
And meet to hide the better, and deny 

The deeper life within you ? — I was sent 
To live at least in simple verity. 



136 SEASIDE. 

For your poor, famislied lives of ostentation, 
What victims bleed of which you never recked ! 

The yearning heart of love — the aspiration 
"Which makes us royal, the sweet self-respect. 

But ah ! I know the lonely hour will find you 
Sincere once more ; to-night doth sadness wait 

To fold you in her purple, and remind you 
Of your dead strength, your regal, lost estate. 



THE aEAVE-DIGGER. 

As pleasant a man as you would see, 
Native or foreign, to vouch I dare ; 

His laugh was hoarse but full of glee, 
Indifferent when or where. 

But most in graves the old man kept 

His singular jubilee ; 
He roared at what most others wept ; 

His life was a funeral glee. 



138 THE GRAVE-DIGGER. 

He had no rival in his trade : 

He knew, one after another, 
All the village would need his axe and spade, 

And troubled himself no further. 

His love and duty were never at strife — 

His charity looked to all ; 
He seemed to think his lease on life 

Long as death held carnival. 

He reasoned, " Well, 'tis nature's creed 
And man's chief want — ^is burial." 

The friend of the world in its sorest need. 
Could the world then spare him well ? 



EPITAPH 

INSCRIBED TO RICHARD, WHO LOVES NOT THE SUB- 
JECT. 

Here lies, 
(Speak softly,) one who dropped away 
As a ripe berry from the spray ; 
She ended nine lives in a day. 

Just at the sunset, as a spark 
Winked by the firelight, did her bark 
Put forth into the unknown dark. 



140 EPITAPH. 

She had no kin to stay her breath ; 

As lonely traveller hasteneth, 

She swam for life the moat of death. 

All musings of the fireside born, 
All love, all fear of hate and scorn, 
The rose of life and its sharp thorn, 

These have exhaled ; in dumbest show 
'Twas willed the curious life should blow, 
And, having blossomed, should pass so. 

Ah, not unkindly does the grave 
Shut out earth's sunlight, if it have 
The power to ripen and to save. 

But you, cat of many years. 

When the inevitable shears 

Cut off your thread of hopes and fears. 



EPITAPH. 141 

Tell us,, what hope could love supply ? 
What page of drear philosophy- 
Would say thou didst not vainly die ? 

" As the beast dieth/' holy writ 
Kemorselessly hath worded it, 
And so constrains our feeble wit. 

Poor beasts ! in mild Chaldaic lore, 
When shepherds watched on starlit moor, 
Your destiny was not so poor. 

Great Nature to her open feast 
Gave welcome Avide, the highest guest 
Had common birthright with the least. 

To live to die ! it could not be ; 

Birthright was immortahty : 

Yea, what was bom could never die. 



142 EPITAPH. 

Alas^ what better faith liave we ? 
What light of heaven shines tenderly 
On this dark web of mystery ? 

What shall we say of what was here ? 
A thing that held its life as dear 
As one of us, in hope and fear. 

Dumbly it asked for human care ; 

A little love, that it might bear 

The ills and pains it could not share ; 

Some patience for misdoings small ; 
For dulness, ignorance, and all 
That made it a dependent thrall 

On human kind- Perhaps not dumb, 
(Nay, Eichard !) in new guise shall come 
Into the spirit's older home, 



EPITAFH. 143 

This poor dependent of our hearth, 
Linked with old scenes of peace and mirth, 
Or cruelty, and pain, and the bleak earth. 



MEMOKY. 

A THING that glideth about 
When the stars are in and the sun is out ; 

Escaping and cheating the eye 
That seeketh it out most anxiously ; 
Yet when the night-shades fall, 

And the work of the day is done, 
Ever it trippeth home 

By the light of the evening sun. 



DOMINIQUE. 

A SWEET hope fluttering at my heart 

Seems oftener like despair, 
A treasure, never yet confessed, 
Turns fair to foul, and foul to fair. 

Because I may not hope this hope, 

This feeling may not feel. 
Its joy has boundless aim and scope. 

Its fiery pain no touch can heal. 

7 



146 DOMINIQUE. 

Gather me roses with the thorn, 
And berries with the bane ; 

Blend into one the night and morn, 
Blend summer's sun with wintry rain ; 

Yet these are never like the woe, 

The treasure I conceal ; 
All bleak, all dark, all bane, aU thorn ; 

My fiery ill is all my weal. 



SONNETS. 



NIGHT. 



I. 

CALMLYj lovinglyj Night, vast and deep. 

Bend round the breathing world ! Thou cool-browed 

wife 
Of fiery Day — he, stirrer of old strife, 
Thou, soother, mother, in whose heart we keep 
A hiding-place to dream, to hope, to weep ! 
Who still exhalest in the purple sky, 
The old star-bloom of immortality. 
Wreathing our momentariness and sleep 
With dignity so sweet and sovereign ! 
Happy the earth to kiss thy broidered hem ! 
Her weak and flagging aspirations take 
New pinions in thy shadows ; thou dost make 
Love deeper bliss, and even care and pain 
Are great and worthy, since thou touchest thOm, 



148 NIGHT. 



II. 



Thou seem'st to solve the eternal unity 

That holds us all. How far, and dim, and deep, 

Bathed in the separate sanctity of sleep — 

Lost in thy wide forgetting do we lie ! 

0, lest that dim abyss, where Memory 

Beats her disabled wing, and hope is not. 

Point to yet wilder deeps, unearth our thought 

In thy far glances ! Through the serene sky. 

When Day from the impurpled hills furls up. 

And heaven's white limits fail, the Infinite, 

Long crushed within, breathes forth its mystic pain 

From vast of height, and depth, and silence, stoop. 

And lift with mystic faith its brow again, — 

Call unto peace the eternal child, dear Night ! 



NIGHT. i4[) 



III. 



Dakkness surrounds me with its phantom hosts. 

Till silence is enchanted speech. I feel 

Those half-spent airs that through the laurel reel, 

And Night's loi^d heart-beats in the tropic coasts,- 

And, soaring amid everlasting frosts, 

To super-sensual rest, as it might outweigh 

A whole world's strife, o'er me gaunt Himaleh 

Droops his broad wing of calm. — Those peaks, 

ghosts 
Outstaring Time, through darkness glimmering ! 
No rush of pinion there, nor bubbling low — 
But death, and silence past imagining ; — • 
Only, day in and out, with endless swing. 
Their aged shadows move, and picture slow 
One on another's unrelenting snow. 



150 NIGHT. 



IV. 



HIGH-BORN souls, sucTi as God sends to mould 
His ages in — and you too, wlio have known 
The pang of strife, and are at last at one 
With nature so, — yea, all who have made hold 
Our timid dreams, and proffered to the hold 

A certain joy — come mingle in life's cope 
Star-fields of verity and stahle hope, 
With these swift meteors and illusions old ! 

1 sent this summons through the deeps of June, 
When life surged up so warm and affluent. 

It wrapt the very whiteness of the moon ;— 
No wonder many came — they came and went — 
And thou, who sleep'st half sad and wak'st with pain. 
Thou earnest too and dost alone remain. 



NIGHT. 151 



So reed-like fragile^ in the world's whirl nought, 

Beggared in earthly hope, alone and bare, — 

Heart pierced, wings cKpped, feet bound, but grandly 

there. 
Ay and with odds 'gainst Fate, thou standest, fraught 
With courage to know all ! — Thus is thy lot 
Worlds deep beneath thee.^-Lovest thou that keen 

air? 
Thou ask'st not hope, nor may the falsely fair 
Approach thy clear integrity of thought. 
Such power, what shall we call it ? For this time. 
Not love, nor yet faith ; but Eternity 
Dilating the mean Day, — the spirit, free 
And self-reliant, from its purer clime 
O'erruling earth, by spirit-law sublime — 
God cleaving /or thee the remorseless sea. 



152 NIGHT. 



VI. 



Of better fortune coming, then, talk not, 

Thou teachest, and think not : — nay, rather dare 

The utmost of the world's ill strength, despair. 

Take up with courage the unlovely lot, 

And it shall grow in thy familiar thought 

To beauty. — Dumb sorrows that the life-strings wear, 

And stings — ^the points of broken trust, and care. 

And those hot, random arrows, whose keen shot 

Must find thine or another heart, shall all 

Be rounded in the sweet and ample sky 

Of the enfranchised soul. Eternity 

Shall come home to the hour. — Thou didst not call 

Light, light — ^heaven, heaven — till now, when not a 

thrall. 
But king thou art — yea, free, forever free. 



NIGHT. 153 



VII. 



In the still hours, a stiller strength was born 
Deep in my heart. — It was no selfish dream, 
Nor even-hope, with far and tender beam, 
To make me for the moment less forlorn : 
Nor was it child of will, before the morn 
To dream itself away. With Hfe dismayed, 
God help me, Grod help me ! — so I prayed ;- 
A simple prayer, but winning swift return ; 
A hand, that raised all gently from the dust. 
And led me childlike on, beyond the strife 
Of vulgar aims, past anguish and distrust. 
And the pale warders of our daily life. 
To where God binds above our harvest sun, 
All fragmentary being in his one. 



154 NIGHT. 



VIII. 



Stoop low, dear Night, a little star-breeze wakes 
The solemn pines. — Child-love doth come and pass, 
And when. His gone, how beautiful it was 
We know. " Thou art like this dear Night, that 

shakes 
Her long hair down, and sits star-throned in lakes 
And loving seas," he said — ^forgive the boy ! 
" And you are gold-tressed Day, the sun-flower's joy. 
Each each pursues — ^but neither overtakes." 
" dull astronomer, do not these two 
Mingle at dawn and even with lovely grace. 
Till one for joy dies in the long embrace ? " 
Experimental science is sole true ; 
And like those twilights 'mid the arctic snows, 
The dusk and fair blent sweet on cheeks and brows. 



NIGHT. 155 



IX. 



Night, a terrible dismay still lurks 

In thy elose caves. Is there another grief 

Than mine upon my soul, or spectral leaf 

In the great record of the years, where works, 

Not dreams, find place — a task declined 

Which the wise heavens appointed for my own 

Nay, or a haunting memory to strike down 

The future's open hand ; — then, down the wind 

• 

With sadly human eyes, but fanged like wolves. 

The pale Erinnyes sweep. happy, then. 

If I with night-long prayer may win again 

Lost faith — faith in Eternity that solves 

Time's stoniest spectres — ^faith in the broad 

Serenity of things — yes, faith in the good God ! 



156 NIGHT. 



When my friend went^ half-stunned, I thought, 
Great God, what then has fallen from me? Power 

to feel 
The sun, after the three days' storm — to kneel 
Before the sacred presence in the wood, 
Or by the throbbing sea — to shun the brood 
Of slave-besetting ills ? But more, more went. 
I did not know, the fearful bow once bent. 
What arrows it could send : — still, all is good ; 
What am I, God, to say, spare this and this .? 
The rain-drop moulds a world. Turning, I knew 
Thy pulse in one still, patient love, that drew 
Me sweetly upward ever, like a kiss ; 
Like him, who, sinking in his lonely hour. 
Found heaven within the desert's single flower. 



NIGHT. 157 



- ±1. 

Within my life another life runs deep, 
To whicli, at blessed seasons, open wide 
Silent, inysterious portals. There reside 
These shapes, that cautiously about me creep. 
This iron mask of birth, and death, and sleep. 
Familiar as the day and open-eyed ; 
And there, broods endless calm. And though it glide 
Ofttimes beyond my sight, and though I keep 
Its voice no more, I know the current flows 
Pulsing to far-off harmonies, and light 
With most unearthly heavens. The world but throws 
A passing spell thereon — as winter, bright. 
Pale feudatory of the arctic Night, 
Swathes witli white silence all these murmurous 
boughs. 



158 NIGHT. 



XII. 



Yet are there sunbeams, though the Mngly sun 

Keveal not his full eye ; yet flowers, to bear 

Mute witness of the Heart that keeps the year, 

Through all its wintry chill ; and I have won, 

Where was no face nor voice, a. glance, a tone, 

A spirit, call it, that all shapes doth wear. 

And brings me knowledge which I scarcely dare 

Call mine. Now, out of grief it sings ; anon. 

It calls me in another's deed or word. 

Capricious is the sprite, and now will herd 

With common things, now wing me wind-warm cheer 

From far-off times and climates happier. 

And when from distant fields I call the Isird, 

A quiet chirp proclaims it nested here. 



NIGHT. 159 



XIII. 



I KNOW this spirit bridges unknown space 

And half-forgotten centuries, that I 

May know I am of royal family, 

And live to my high birth. The marble face 

Of Destiny grows fluent, as I trace 

These arteries of broad being. I can wait 

More j^ears than earth allots me, for my state 

Is not of time : nor binds me any place, 

Since on and on the mazy current tends. 

That takes my little thread, a breath might sever, 

To mingle it with universal ends ; — 

And tho' I fail and fall, yet am I still 

Most strong ; since every high, tho' balked endeavor, 

God intertwines with his eternal will. 



160 IjflGHT. 



XIV. 



Alas ! and yesternight I woke in terror. 

Crying, Great God, wliat awful shadows press 

Around us from this dreary nothingness 

Of death, and life's old, caverned glooms of error ! 

Are we immortal, Father, are we dearer 

To thee than common dust ? " Thou art but one 

Of this dense thxong, through time still hastening on ; 

Thy blood with theirs is warm," my good Familiar 

Said softly unto me, — " how canst thou slake 

Thy thirst when their lips parch, or rightly see 

With twilight misting round thee ? Dearest, wake ! 

Thy brethren are not saved except in thee ; 

Nor thou, save in their health, their joy, their sight, 

Hast any lasting peace, or heavenly light." 



NIGHT. 161 



XV. 



mankind's God ! most silent and most lowly 
Is wisdom's entrance to our hearts ; with less 
Of conscious power, than self-forgetfulness 
And an enduring patience ! Though most slowly, 
Thou winn'st us by such lovely paths to know thee, 
And the immortal life that from thee flows. 
But if thy mild lure fail, come untold woes, 
Doubt, pain, and learning's poor, convicted folly. 
To make self bitter, and compel us forth. 
We live not in a part ; our prophecies 
Are infant wailings — wailing of the earth ! 
Only the ocean matches the great skies — 
Only the infinite of love and ruth 
deceives the living infinite of truth. 



THE FUaiTIVE-SLAVE-BILL. 

Deak God, wlio art so very calm — 
All-seeing and so patient still, 
Fill me with calm before tliee ; root 
From out my heart, the germ and shoot 
Of narrow sight and selfish wiU. 

And though my heart impatient beat, 
And bitter tears I stem within, 
May I recall that life to-day 
Of pitying Christ, which seemed to say, 
The saddest of all griefs is sin. 



THE FUGITIVE-SLAVE-BILL. 163 

patient souls, that sadly toil 
Where Weeding feet before have trod, 
The oppressor and the oppressed are here ; 

1 know you choose the weight, the fear, 
The stripes above the awful rod ! 

We talk of sorrow — talk of death. 
Old signs for old things all unmoved. 
Who bears about this deadly grief. 
An inward bane, with no relief — 
He only grief and death has proved. 

What wonder, if men sometimes doubt 

If God be in his heavens or no ? 

The lightnings open them, but still 

And fine, the motions of his will 

That keep true balance flit in veins below. 

No little thing that seems to live 
Its poor, mean life, a creeping clod. 



164 THE FUGITIVE-SLAVE-BILL. 

But has a hope for its brief hours, 

A joy perhaps more fine than ours — ' 

A something it may keep from God. 

In silent ways, He evens all. 
All silently, the mean he brings 
Up to his own transcendent height : 
All silently with inward blight, 
He shrinks oppression's evil springs. 

But go not thou, with truth like this, 
To the poor thralls of grief and fear, 
Till thou hast labored well and long. 
To heal their wounds, to right their wrong. 
And won the noble right to cheer. 

And who may close his eyes and hands ? 
You, if the air's free motions breed 
No joy in you, if you may vaunt 
To live without a hope, nor want 
Man's comfort in your bitter need. 



THE FUGITIVE-SLAVE-BILL. 165 

Our rivers, from their mountain springs, 
Deepen and broaden to the sea ; 
And ever as they stream along, 
Warble their noble mountain song 
To meadow lily and tulip tree. 

Forget your native hymn alas ! 

And be to earth's warm breast as dead — 

Or breathe one breath of Freedom's morn, 

One blast upon her mountain horn. 

And let men know where you were born and bred ! 

No narrow policy — no — 

East, west, north, south alone to suit ! 

No chartered wrong — ^^no " fixed fact " lie — 

No mean to-day's expediency — 

Seed of to-morrow's bitter fruit ! 

not beneath Grod's light, forego 

Your birthright in our dear-bought land ! 



166 THE FUGITIVE-SLAVE-BILL. 

Your freeman's reverence for tlie free. 



Your freeman's faith in liberty — 

Your freeman's unslaved soul and hand ! 

And if man hid you darken Kfe, 

Quench hope and seize what Grod's love gave, 

Leave the poor serpent to his hiss, 

Do aught, be aught, but be not this — 

Far rather be a southern slave ! 



FACTS IN VEKSE. 

Being here thy loom ; and lay the warp 
All through of gold : with silken thread, 
In violet, yellow, black and red, 
As another, tones upon a harp, 
Thou improvisest lovely shapes. 
And reemhodiest the dead. 

My words I know no grace can vaunt : 

But thou, within thy magic loom. 

Wilt give them meaning, strength and bloom, 
And the tale I tell shall have no want, 

Pictured in fadeless sun and gloom. 



168 FACTS IN VEKSE. 

A speck here, journeying to the west, 
One sees a mount with beetling top, 
The very plunge of the wave, when drop 

The flashing Curls from its sharp, white crest. 

Soon you come to the mountain land ; 

Where peak beyond peak in their cloud abodes. 
Like Titans at rest and at peace with the Gods, 

The ancient, beautiful brethren stand. 

* 

So calm and sane are they, we know 
When there, no more of the babble and strife, 
The passion or emptiness of life. 

We are up with them, and the world, below ; 

Above the belts where summer clings ; 
Where silence ever wakes and broods 
Around their wild and vapory hoods, 

Low rustling its enchanted wings. 



FACTS IN VERSE. 1G9 

We listen through their clinging mist, 
For hymns in far-off childhood heard ; 
Old hymns of faith, from those that guard 

The snow and the sacred amethyst. 

Thou dost not feel their music cease, 

When at thy feet, some little bloom 

Smiles suddenly from covert gloom, 
And minds thee of a lowlier peace. 

Those threaded sunbeams of the wood. 

The wildering rivulets, merrily 

Kiss thine intruding feet and flee, 
As careless of thy higher mood. 

Gold green the blessed valleys lie ; 

By giant shadows now embraced. 

And now with sunbeams interlaced. 
And panting 'neath the happy sky. 



170 FACTS IN VERSE. 

If here and there the smoke upcurls, 
It witnesses of some warm hearth, 
Where nestle human loves and mirth, 

Gray eld and sunny boys and girls. 

Among those regions fair and dread, 
A fallen trunk's majestic beam 
Bridges a granite-walled stream, 

An hundred feet above its bed. 

So brief the space from ledge to ledge, 
Only the mid-day sun can send 
An arrow that its depth may rend — 

And three steps on the sturdy bridge 
Will span it clear, from end to end. 

A maiden, on a summer even, 

Stood there above the torrent's flow, 
And looked into the depth below. 

And up the hollow sphere of heaven. 
As if to measure some great wo. 



FACTS IN VERSE. 171 

Her birth-place, circled with soft air. 

Lay many a league away : — her kin, 

Her mother of a darker skin, 
Who called, in pride of her fair hair, 

The pretty maiden, Lilian. 

None knew her history — nor he 

Who loved her, guessed what phantom dread 
Mocked at her heart's young feast, and said, 

Mid fragrant woodpaths, up the free. 
Bold hills, " Be evermore afraid." 

Forgive her that she did not clear 

Her soul of the great weight it bore ; 

And for its silence ached the more ; — 
The heart made weak with earthly fear, 

Love cannot teach it all its lore. 

At length the ill foreshadowed came ; 
And hope called home its latest beam. 



172 FACTS IN VERSE. 

She caught one day the evil gleam 
Of keen and cruel eyes — the same 

That turned to nightmare childhood's dream. 

Was it strange that thoughts of death should then 
Fill all her soul ? — hut with calm pace 
She turned her from the trysting-place 

That nigljt ; (what wonder, yet again, 
Is death the darkest thing to face ?) 

And wending homeward thro' the even, 
She stopped above the torrent's flow, 
And looked into the dark below. 

And up the empty, silent heaven ; 
And could not measure her great wo. 

The waters kept a merry din ; 

From peopled wastes and wilds untrod, 

And brightly over love's abode. 
The perfect day shut softly in. 

The wondrous Passion-flower of God ! 



FACTS IN VERSE. 173 

She said, I thought this world so wide ! 
With room for every hope inwrought 
Here with the life, — Love, Freedom, aught 

To lesser creatures not denied ; — 
Simply, I knew not what I thought ! 

When the owl leaves his hollow tree. 

He ofttimes captures on the wing, 

Some poor, belated, panting thing, 
A little thrush, perhaps, that free 

Fares homeward 'mid June's blossoming. 

I envy, God, that little thrush ! 

He is not hated of his kind ; 

I envy him his free-born mind, 
And last, his home foregone — the hush 

Of absence that he leaves behind. 

When with my love, I sought the Fall 
But now, and over wave and bird 



174 FACTS IN VERSE. 

His loWj assuring speech I heard— 
I thought that I would tell him all — ^ 
For love is better than its word. 

But no, God; no ; for as I live, 

'Twere death and worse, to watch alone 
The gradual change come darkening down ; 

How tell him that I sought to give 
To him, what never was my own ? 

But now if from his path, at length, 
I glide like last night's pleasant dream, 
Which could not wait the morning's heam^ 

Though memory has its bitter strength, 
The sweet too stays to comfort him. 

Grod pardon me my selfish heart ! 
But is it not best then to be 
A clear strain broke — a memory 

Of good alloyed not, as thou art, 
Bird, to home watchers in the tree ? 



FACTS IN VERSE. 175 

'Twere good then, when to morrow's sun 

Comes with its slow inspiring on, 

To be one sacred ray withdrawn — 
A sweet want in the heart of one — 

A silence through the waking dawn. 

Yonder, great heaven, men wait to bind 

These limbs with chains ! the night-birds roam 
To seize the loiterer wending home ! 

'Tis well, they are not of my kind. 
For I am human, let them copie. 



The jubilant waters far below, 

Went harping over twig and stone. 
And roots with black moss overgrown ; 

One scarce had noticed in their flow 
A slightly changed and muffled tone. 



176 FACTS IN VEESE. 

One only, who forbidden still 

To follow her, said in heart-play, 
I will haste round the longer way, 

And while obedient, have my wiU, 
And see her once again to-day. 

He waited long beside her door, — 

Then said. Her foot is swift and light ; 
An hour ago, if I read right. 

She passed this happy threshold o'er — 
He stooped and kissed it 'neath the night. 

And laughing at his vigil vain, 

And thinking, when the sun's gold edge 
Should ripple over the eastern ridge 

Of clouds, they two would meet again, 
He loitered homeward by the bridge. 

There listening, Is it mists of night, 
That break thy murmur to my ear, 



FACTS IN VERSE. 1*77 

Or pausest thou, shuddering with some fear, 
Or burthened with a new delight, 

.Dear stream, thy voice is not so clear? 

Perhaps through wood and rocky reach, 

A spirit of the wave, thy bride, 

Kuns softly wimpling to thy side, 
And thou, confused in thy speech, 

For painful joy dost talk so wide. 

When love with love makes God's clear day, 

A light for every coming year. 

Each thing to hope and fancy dear. 
Comes double laden, or, best say. 

Is half a joy and half a fear. 

So feeble are we ! and the fair. 

Sweet Presence that within us sings, 
The hour, that like concentred springs. 

Comes freighted with its heavenly air, 
Cannot forego its heavenly wings. 



178 FACTS IN VEKSE. 

He, musing as his pathway led, 

Met comrades from the field's late task : 
A happy lover what can mask ? 

Not night or silence : greetings said, 
Your Lilian, she is well ? they ask. 

The calm, far starlight healing fell 
On scarred trunk and broken ridge. 
And seemed to give an answering pledge. 

As he replied. My love is well. 
We parted yonder at the bridge. 

Nor was he mindful of love's cheats. 

Till they had passed, when, smiling gay. 
He thought, In sooth, I did not say 

Amiss ; — ^love still is near — and meets 
And parts, a thousand times a day. 

So passed he homewards, weaving dear, 
Soft dreams and hopes in garlands slight ;- 



FACTS IN VERSE. l79 

What thrilling touches of strange light, 
What hreaths from some far atmosphere, 
World, in thy grand, old pause of Night ! 

Spirits that watch, do you not pray 

In the still hours, Light come no more, 
Shine not upon life's blasted flower — 

Let only us see it, who may 

See God and earth, the self-same hour f 

Doubt, terror, the long agony 

Of dread suspense, sore ill to brook ! — 
Until on many a fearful nook, 

The sun sends in his searching eye. 

And looks there till he makes men look ! 

Believe that there are times so rife 
With vital blood, as many say. 
That moments ere they pass turn gray, 

And fruitage on the vine of life 
Kipens and drops in one brief day. 



180 FACTS IN VERSE. 

God Jceeps us : — that is something good. 
Whichever way the current run \ 
When Fate its sorry worst has done, 

He leads you to life's marble mood, 
Where, torpid, you await the sun. 

But if, as may be, God unlock 

Despair with lightning, you shall turn 
In vain some kindly rest to earn : 

The soft, south wind your pangs will mock — 
The very stars will sting and burn. 

Bethink thee, if thy soul's true mate 
Should sudden from thy side be caught, 
With last eve's kisses newly fraught. 

And darkness overhang his fate, 
A mystery that deadened thought ; 

And doubts, that first had plied their wings 
In covert of the twilight gray, 



FACTS IN VERSE. 181 

Should wing at last the open day, 
And doubts should grow to whisperings 
That you had reft that life away ; — 

" God ! " you say, " they left him so — 
Widowed of all men's love, to grieve 
And die " — ? Nay, worse than that — believe 

Time's shuttles fly ; we scarcely know 
The awful pictures he may weav 

They crippled first his manly strength 

With prison air and prison gloom ; 

And ere mid- winter's frosty bloom, 
From chains and judgment-bar, at length 

They gave him to the felon's doom. 

What said he — what he thought — God knows ! 

A fear, a frightful doubt, ere long 

A dread belief of some deep wrong 
Done, in the minds of men arose, 

And waxed from day to day more strong. 



182 FACTS IN VERSE. 

And tlien there came from the south land, 
Sealed, as men say, with dying breath, 
Confession as from hell beneath, 

That two, who waited near at hand, 
Had seen the wretched maiden's death. 

" Gone's gone, lost, lost " ! Say you, I mar 
With sadness life's most heavenly things ? 
'Tis but the air that sweeps the strings ; 

You cannot probe the earth-mould far, 
Ere you shall reach her tearful springs. 

Dear, skilful lady, in whose loom, 
The breath of natural joy and pain 
Is woven, as nerves are in the brain, 

A crimson gush wraps all our room. 
The close of Day's triumphant strain ! 

Is it the coming night-breath, wreathed 
With phantom dews, that all those wan 



FACTri IN VERBE. 183 

Acacia flowerets seems to fan^ 
Or tlie living joy tlirougli nature breathed 
By the infinite hope of man ? 



^ 



SONNETS. 



CONTINENCE. 



I PLEDGE you in a cup not overbrimming. 

Though heirs to all, Grod knows our weak hearts best, 

And tenipts us gently from our downy nest, 

To the wide air. Yon fresh horizon, dimming, • 

And tempering to our thought, the abysses gleaming 

Beyond ; eternity's severe, pure light 

Soft prismed by time ; and love, the infinite, 

Through human founts intelligibly streaming. 

Teach us that heaven withholdeth but to fill : 

Grasping thou would' st lose all. Wait then and see, 

In the old press of duty steadfast still, 

How comes the unexpected god to thee ; 

How the wild Future, that now mocks thy clasp, 

Lies trembling in the Present's nervous grasp. 



SONNETS. 185 



TO THE SPIRIT. 

BY A prodigal's FAVOEITE- 

Thou teachest better things unto my heart, 
Than with my mouth I sing. I would fain be 
The Memnon of the sunrise that I see : 
I would the uprising flame would dart 
Forth from my lips in living melody. 
Or might I mock that inward hymn — ! In vain ; 
Like the poor bird that seeks so passionately 
To breathe its rival's more melodious strain^ 
I beat my wings for nought. And yet, soul, 
Life, love and nature, better thus to live 
With you in close embrace, as whole in whole, 
Than to give happily with less to give ; 
I drink continually the nectar up. 
Yet never see the bottom of the cup. 



186 son:nets. 



TO THE SAME. 

BY A MISEE's PENSIONEB. 

Once, spirit, as a little child, I went 

Unto the burning mount, where thou didst stoop 

To pluck me from low cares and sorrows up, 

My inspiration, my abandonment. 

Thou camest, because the messengers I sent 

Were love and noble longings. I was given 

To that self-losing which restores us heaven. 

But now my sacrificial robe is rent. 

And turns to ashes in the poisonous breath 

Of this low life — and fast contract mine eyes 

To meet the glare of colored vanities. — 

In passionless self-possession croucheth death ; 

Better than this were agony and strife — 

Wake me to life, if need be, bleeding life ! 



SONNETS. 187 



C. L'E. 

I DWELT content with God and loving all, 

In those first years ; but ere long, something strove 

Within — and, Fame, I thought, is larger love ; 

And love of fame, in every noble soul, 

Is love of love ; — and, though I missed the goal, 

I could but see how, quite beyond our wills, 

Some pure and deep Intelligence fulfils 

Our longings in its own deep way. — My shoal 

God centred in a starred, unfathomed well ; 

The world might roar at will ; 'twas charity 

Merely to let it go ; around me fell 

Surpassing sun and air ; and for earth's free, 

Broad paths were slight, restraining arms so pale, 

And endless kisses by the yearning sea. 



188 SONNETS. 



THE SAME. 

'TwAS then we said, thrice happy in our earth, 

That when ripe summer in the cornfield stirred, 

And brought its mother instinct to the bird. 

Silent within the boughs, — there should go forth 

An unsuspected power of good, to girth 

The world with more enduring beauty, since 

Two lives should then grow one, for furtherance 

Before all things, of ends of godlike worth. 

Now . . I know not. . . God's way is scarcely clear ; 

Perhaps earth could not clasp so great a good, 

And heaven takes up the trust . . still, work is here, 

And something dearer in the springing sod 

Than was of old, when all was very dear — 

And so once more, but more alone with God. 



SONNETS. 189 



From all these mounds, though day blows fresh and 

warm, 
The wasting snow of this snow-haunted spring 
Marks out her nameless hillock ; lingering 
As loth to rifle of its virgin charm, 
That spot of all. No sudden-winged alarm 
The little blue-bird takes, that looks abroad 
From yon top twig, with prophecy overflowed 
Beyond all dread or heeding ; — hark ! so calm 
Kills forth his vocal sunshine on the air ! 
A frail hepatic a has here forerun 
The bounty of the season. — Ah, forbear ! 
Take no life here : the aspiring dust has won 
To other bloom and sweetness — let us share 
With God's mute confidant this vernal sun. 



190 SONNETS. 



TJIE SAME. 

Might we make quest, through this soft circling sky, 

In whose wide breath that little breath was lost, 

Which sweetened all our air, for the dear ghost. 

It were in vain, we know : — but happily 

When the poor frame dissolves, the spirit high 

Makes it her messenger to the elements, 

Which tell us by unnumbered fair events. 

What the heart yearns to know : aye, to the sigh 

Of ever-questioning love, even heaven unbars 

Joyful, its azure-gated mystery. 

And says. Who wings a thought, poor though it be. 

From his meek distance upward to my stars. 

Is linked to God in whose great thought they are. 

And his imperishable life must share. 



SONNETS. 19 1 



THE PASSION FLOWER. 

The cross, the thorns, the cruel nails again ! 
Thus opens God's diviner flower of Day 
To thee, Flower-giver : was no better way- 
Found out, whereby thou early should'st obtain. 
What others seek through life-long years in vain, 
Peace and a large, sweet charity, than this 
Which that stern angel points thee to, whose kiss 
Of consecration on thy brow is Pain. 
I weep consenting — knowing well that so 
God tempers to a more than mortal fineness 

Friend, so high in sorrow — be not mindless 

1 keep for thee a heart-warm rest below ; 

With hopes and human yearnings, wilt thou know ? 
It shall not mar thy strength or thy divineness. 



■^25 TsOv. T^5^^| 



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